Automatically inferring software-defined network policies from the observed workload in a computing environment

ABSTRACT

Techniques are disclosed for automatically inferring software-defined network policies from the observed workload in a computing environment. The disclosed techniques include monitoring network traffic flow originating from network interfaces corresponding to containers that execute components of an application, recording details of a new network connection or a change in the existing network connection, obtaining information concerning the components of the application, identifying metadata for a component involved in the new network connection or the change in an existing network connection based on a comparison of the details of the new network connection or a change in the existing network connection and the information concerning the components of the application, generating a network policy for the component using at least the metadata for the component, and integrating the network policy for the component into a deployment package for the application.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present disclosure relates generally to network traffic control, andmore particularly, to techniques for automatically inferringsoftware-defined network policies from the observed workload in acomputing environment.

BACKGROUND

Container orchestration tools provide a robust framework for managingand deploying containerized applications across a cluster of computingnodes in a computing environment. Examples of these tools include, forinstance, Kubernetes, Open Shift, Docker Swarm and the like. The usageof these tools has dramatically increased in the recent years with therising popularity of cloud-based services and changes in the design ofservices/applications from large and monolithic systems to highlydistributed and micro-service based systems. In the micro-service basedmodel, an application is built using a large number of small componentscommunicating over a network. Each component can be independentlydeployed, upgraded and scaled to a production environment.Software-defined networks are an integral part of the micro-servicebased model, allowing seamless changes to individual components withoutdisruption. Each time the arrangement of a component within the systemchanges, the underlying network is reconfigured automatically.Components in such networks typically have dynamically assigned InternetProtocol (IP) addresses that are not stable for a particular componenttype.

Due to the dynamic nature of the network, existing techniques (e.g.,host or network based firewalls) used by container orchestrationframeworks for implementing network traffic flow controls are oftentimesinadequate. Since the network traffic leaving the host or traversing thenetwork is often encapsulated, it is very challenging to distinguishtraffic at the level of individual components that reside on the hosts(computing nodes). Even if additional logic is introduced tode-encapsulate the packets traversing the network, filtering the networktraffic still poses a challenge due to the dynamic nature of the sourceand destination addresses of the components.

BRIEF SUMMARY

This disclosure relates generally to virtual networking environments andnetwork traffic control within those virtual networking environments.More specifically, but not by way of limitation, this disclosuredescribes techniques (e.g., a method, a system, non-transitorycomputer-readable medium storing code or instructions executable by oneor more processors) automatically inferring software-defined networkpolicies from the observed workload in a computing environment.

In various embodiments, a method is provided that comprises: monitoring,by a data processing system, network traffic flow originating fromnetwork interfaces corresponding to containers that execute componentsof an application; detecting, by the data processing system, a newnetwork connection or a change in an existing network connection withinthe network traffic based on the monitoring of the network traffic flow;in response to detecting the new network connection or the change in theexisting network connection, recording, by the data processing system,details of the new network connection or the change in the existingnetwork connection, where the details include a network address of asource component and a network address of a destination component forthe new network connection or the change in the existing networkconnection; obtaining, by the data processing system, informationconcerning the components of the application, where the informationincludes the network address and metadata associated with each of thecomponents of the application; identifying, by the data processingsystem, metadata for the source component and the destination componentbased on a comparison of at least the network address of the sourcecomponent and the network address of the destination component to thenetwork address associated with each of the components of theapplication; generating, by the computer system, a network policy forthe source component or the destination component using at least themetadata for the source component and the destination component, wherethe network policy comprises information representative of the newnetwork connection or the change in the existing network connection; andintegrating, by the computer system, the network policy for the sourcecomponent or the destination component into a deployment package for theapplication.

In some embodiments, the details further include a time stamp for thenew network connection or the change in the existing network connection.

In some embodiments, the information further includes any changes toarrangement of the components and time of the changes, and the metadatacomprises labels associated with each of the components of theapplication.

In some embodiments, the network policy for the source component or thedestination component is generated using at least the metadata for thesource component and the destination component, the time stamp for thenew network connection or the change in the existing network connection,and the time of the changes associated with the arrangement of thesource component or the destination component.

In some embodiments, the method further comprises: identifying, by thedata processing system, a subset of components of the components of theapplication that are not involved in the new network connection or thechange in the existing network connection based on the comparison of atleast the network address of the source component and the networkaddress of the destination component to the network address associatedwith each of the components of the application, where the network policyfor the source component or the destination component is generated usingat least the metadata for the source component and the destinationcomponent and the subset of components of the components of theapplication that are not involved in the new network connection or thechange in the existing network connection.

In some embodiments, the network policy comprises information indicatingthat the network policy is applicable to a defined version of the sourcecomponent or the destination component.

In some embodiments, the method further comprises: deploying, by thedata processing system, the deployment package to a computing node in acomputing environment of the data processing system.

In various embodiments, a system is provided that includes one or moredata processors and a non-transitory computer readable storage mediumcontaining instructions which, when executed on the one or more dataprocessors, cause the one or more data processors to perform part or allof one or more methods disclosed herein.

In various embodiments, a computer-program product is provided that istangibly embodied in a non-transitory machine-readable storage mediumand that includes instructions configured to cause one or more dataprocessors to perform part or all of one or more methods disclosedherein.

The techniques described above and below may be implemented in a numberof ways and in a number of contexts. Several example implementations andcontexts are provided with reference to the following figures, asdescribed below in more detail. However, the following implementationsand contexts are but a few of many.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 depicts an example of a distributed computing environment forgenerating network policies for components of an application deployed inthe computing environment, according to various embodiments.

FIG. 2 depicts an example of an application deployed in a containerizedenvironment of the computing environment shown in FIG. 1, according tovarious embodiments.

FIG. 3 depicts an example arrangement of components of the applicationshown in FIG. 2 on a cluster of nodes in a container-based framework,according to various embodiments.

FIG. 4 depicts various examples of network polices defined by acontainer-based framework for a containerized application deployed on acluster of nodes in the container-based framework, according to variousembodiments.

FIG. 5 is an example of the containerized application shown in FIG. 2depicting a change in the operation of one of the components within thecontainerized application, according to various embodiments.

FIG. 6 depicts additional details of the operations performed by thesystems shown in FIG. 1 for generating network policies for componentsof an application deployed in a computing environment, according tovarious embodiments.

FIG. 7 is an example of a process for generating a network policy for acomponent of an application executing in a containerized environment,according to various embodiments.

FIG. 8 is an example of a process for detecting network connections,detecting components within a containerized environment, and generatinga network policy for a component of an application executing in thecontainerized environment, according to various embodiments.

FIG. 9 is an example of a process of the manner in which the networkpolicy of a component may be utilized, according to various embodiments.

FIG. 10 is a block diagram illustrating one pattern for implementing acloud infrastructure as a service system, according to at least oneembodiment.

FIG. 11 is a block diagram illustrating another pattern for implementinga cloud infrastructure as a service system, according to at least oneembodiment.

FIG. 12 is a block diagram illustrating another pattern for implementinga cloud infrastructure as a service system, according to at least oneembodiment.

FIG. 13 is a block diagram illustrating another pattern for implementinga cloud infrastructure as a service system, according to at least oneembodiment.

FIG. 14 is a block diagram illustrating an example computer system,according to at least one embodiment.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

In the following description, for the purposes of explanation, specificdetails are set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding ofcertain embodiments. However, it will be apparent that variousembodiments may be practiced without these specific details. The figuresand description are not intended to be restrictive. The word “exemplary”is used herein to mean “serving as an example, instance, orillustration.” Any embodiment or design described herein as “exemplary”is not necessarily to be construed as preferred or advantageous overother embodiments or designs.

In certain approaches, software defined networks, used in containerorchestration tools often by default, allow communication between allthe components within the system. For example, in Kubernetes, CommonNetwork Interface plugins are required to assign an Internet Protocol(IP) address to every component (or pod) in an application and theplugins allow traffic between every pod, regardless of the underlyingnetwork used. One approach involves the use of software-based tunnelingprotocols, such as VXLAN, to provide a flat network that moves trafficseamlessly within and between hosts (physical machines or virtualmachines) that provide computing instances to the cluster. While, theprimary goal of such a network is to provide connectivity forcontinuously changing workloads, it does not provide security orisolation of network traffic between the components.

To compensate for the challenges faced by container orchestration toolsthat use traditional network controls to specify policy rules forcommunication between the components of a containerized application,container orchestration frameworks may provide mechanisms to restrictthe traffic within the cluster by specifying a network policy (e.g., anetwork security policy) configuration for the entire application andproviding it to the cluster's control plane. The policy indirectlyaddresses the components through metadata associated with thesecomponents. For example, in Kubernetes, the policy specification may notuse identifiers of pods, but may instead use pod labels and namespaceswhere multiple pods can share labels and namespaces. As used herein, apod may refer to a set of one or more components of an application thatmay be processed by the orchestration tool at a time.

In certain approaches, in container-based frameworks such as Kubernetesand OpenShift, network policies are distributed as a collection ofindependent objects. These objects have their own lifecycle, can bechanged independently, but affect each other and the system (i.e., thecontainerized application) as a whole. For example, a policy statementfor one object can accidentally overshadow another policy defined foranother object. Furthermore, elements that are used to specify thepolicy, such as component labels, may change independently from thepolicy itself. It is possible that routine reconfiguration of acomponent will accidentally impact a policy. Additionally, when tasks ofthe component and network policy management are split between differentteams within an organization, the process of defining network policiesfor individual components by container-based frameworks becomes evenmore challenging.

Network policy management is particularly challenging with a trulycontinuous delivery model. In this case, individual components aredelivered independently, typically with one change to the system at atime. New components may be delivered very frequently, multiple times aday, and each time they may potentially require a different networkconfiguration. In addition, older and newer versions of the samecomponent are often running in in parallel, to facilitate non-disruptivetransition during an upgrade, or to provide a gradual change deliverymodel. In this model, system processing (defined by a portion ofprocessing, groups of users or other means) is gradually directed tonewer components. Gradual rollout of changes allows monitoring changesin a real-life environment and their operation under increased load,without risking a full system disruption. Also, the arrangement of thecomponents may be different in different environments, with differentfeature sets, regulatory compliance requirements or customer needs.

In such an environment, defining precise network policies is achallenging task. The requirements for policies and connection paths maychange on daily basis and manual creation of tight network policies isnot feasible at this rate, speed and degree of automation. There is noeasy way to infer network policies from the observed traffic. When thetraffic is recorded, the only information directly available is lowlevel (IP addresses, ports, protocols, etc.). This information howevercannot be used to construct the policies, and are not stable orrepeatable across clusters or even within single cluster over time.Also, the elements that are used to specify the policies, such ascomponent labels, may change independently from the policies themselves.It is possible that routine reconfiguration of a component willaccidentally impact a policy. Tasks of component and network policymanagement can be split between different parts of the team which makesthis problem even more likely. In practice, many organizations resort tousing a pre-defined set of policies (also referred to herein ascoarse-grained network policies) such as the zone-based polices toreflect general network traffic expectations of the system. While acoarse-grained policy developed by users may be used to reflect generalnetwork traffic expectations of the system, in container frameworks itis not possible to use a coarse-grained together with a fine-grainedpolicy. This is due to the fact that, if present, the coarse-grainedpolicy would allow all the traffic within its boundaries and overshadowits subset, that is, the fine-grained policy.

The present disclosure describes improved techniques for automaticallyinferring software-defined network policies from the observed workloadin a computing environment. The disclosed systems include capabilitiesfor capturing the traffic data in the cluster and simultaneouslycorrelating the source and destination addresses with the objects in thecluster. This provides the data on communication between the objects inthe cluster. This data is subsequently aggregated and used to create thenetwork policies. In operation each component/node on a network isprovisioned to include an agent that monitors the outgoing traffic. Theagent records network flow (e.g., TCP connections and UDP traffic)within the cluster. Once a flow is recorded, the componentscorresponding to the source of destination addresses are identified bythe agent and recorded with the flow. Identification and recording ofcomponents simultaneously with the traffic is advantageous, as duringthe cluster lifecycle components may be added or removed, addressesreused and so forth. Along with the component, the agent records thecomponent metadata that is relevant for creating a policy such ascomponent labels. This data, including the specific network flow betweentwo cluster objects is recorded. Simultaneously, the agent records thestatus and changes to all of the objects in the cluster. Understandingof all the objects is advantageous as it allows to identify thecomponents that are not involved in any traffic flows. By the end of theprocess, all the cluster components, as well as their communication isrecorded. This data is subsequently used to generate a network policy.

Referring now to the drawings, FIG. 1 depicts an example of adistributed computing environment 100 for generating network policiessuch as network security policies for components of an applicationdeployed in the computing environment, according to certain embodiments.The computing environment 100 may include a test environment 112 and aproduction environment 122. The test environment 112 and the productionenvironment 122 may comprise one or more computing systems that executecomputer-readable instructions (e.g., code, program) to implement thetest environment 112 and the production environment 122. As depicted inFIG. 1, the test environment 112 includes a test system 108 and theproduction environment 122 includes a deployment orchestrator system116. Portions of data or information used by or generated in the testenvironment 112 and the production environment 122 as part of itsprocessing may be stored in a persistent memory such as a network policydata store 120. The systems depicted in FIG. 1 may be implemented usingsoftware (e.g., code, instructions, program) executed by one or moreprocessing units (e.g., processors, cores) of a computing system,hardware, or combinations thereof. The software may be stored on anon-transitory storage medium (e.g., on a memory device).

The computing environment 100 depicted in FIG. 1 is merely an exampleand is not intended to unduly limit the scope of claimed embodiments.One of ordinary skill in the art would recognize many possiblevariations, alternatives, and modifications. For example, in someimplementations, the computing environment 100 can be implemented usingmore or fewer systems than those shown in FIG. 1, may combine two ormore systems, or may have a different configuration or arrangement ofsystems and subsystems.

The computing environment 100 may be implemented in various differentconfigurations. In certain embodiments, the computing environment 100comprising the test system 108 and the deployment orchestrator system116 may be implemented in an enterprise servicing users of theenterprise. In other embodiments, the systems in the computingenvironment 100 may be implemented on one or more servers of a cloudprovider and the network policy creation services of the systems may beprovided to subscribers of cloud services on a subscription basis.

In certain embodiments, a user may interact with the test system 108using a user device 102 that is communicatively coupled to the testsystem 108, possibly via one or more communication networks. The userdevice 102 may be of various types, including but not limited to, amobile phone, a tablet, a desktop computer, and the like. The user mayrepresent a user of an enterprise who subscribes to the servicesprovided by the systems of the computing environment 100 forautomatically generating network policies for components of anapplication to be deployed in the computing environment. The user mayinteract with the test system 108 using a browser executed by the userdevice 102. For example, the user may use a user interface (UI) (whichmay be a graphical user interface (GUI)) of the browser executed by theuser device 102 to interact with the test system 108.

In certain embodiments, a user may, via the UI, provide an application104 to be deployed in the computing environment. The application 104 mayrepresent a micro-service based containerized application that may bedeployed in the production environment 122. In certain examples, theapplication 104 may comprise multiple components where multipleinstances of each component can be executed as containers on nodeswithin a cluster of nodes in a containerized environment of theproduction environment 122. In certain examples, the containerizedenvironment may be provided by a container orchestration platform suchas Kubernetes, OpenShift, Docker Swarm and the like. An example of anapplication deployed to a production environment 122 is shown in FIG. 2.

In certain examples, the application 104 (comprising a set of one ormore components) may be provided to the test system 108 prior to itsdeployment in the containerized environment. As part of the testingphase, the test system 108 monitors the network traffic flow between thedifferent components of the application and generates component-specificnetwork policies 110 for the components based on the discovered networkpaths/network traffic. In certain embodiments, for each network pathidentified for a component, the test subsystem 108 performs additionalprocessing to check if the network path violates a pre-defined networkpolicy 117 (also referred to herein as a coarse-grained network policy)defined for the test environment/application. The set of pre-definednetwork polices 117 may be defined, for example, by the user of theenterprise and these policies reflect general network trafficexpectations of the flow of network traffic between the components ofthe application in the test environment. Examples of coarse-grainedpolices defined for an application are described in FIG. 4. If it isdetermined that the coarse-grained network policy is not violated by anynetwork path identified for the component, the test system 108 generatesa component-specific network policy for the component.

In certain embodiments, as part of the application development process,the test subsystem 108 may be configured to receive (via the UI) a newversion of a component 106 of the application 104 to be deployed as partof the application deployed in the containerized environment. Forinstance, a user of an enterprise may wish to update an earlier versionof a component of the application, for example, because the operationperformed by the component changed. In this case, the user may providean updated (or new) version of the component for testing by the testsystem 108. The test subsystem 108 receives the updated version of thecomponent 106 and generates a component-specific network policy for theupdated version of the component by identifying network paths/networktraffic originating from the updated version of the component to one ormore other components within the application. Additionally, the testsubsystem 108 performs processing to determine if any of the identifiednetwork paths violate the coarse-grained network policy defined in thetest environment.

In certain embodiments, as a result of the processing performed by thetest system 108, the test system 108, generates a deployment package 114that includes the component(s) of the application 104 to be deployed andtheir associated network polices. A deployment orchestrator system 116in the production environment 122 receives the deployment package 114and uses the deployment package to deploy the component(s) of theapplication and their associated network policies to different nodes ina cluster of nodes in the containerized environment. In certainexamples, the deployment orchestrator system 116 stores informationidentifying the network policies associated with the differentcomponents in the network policy data store 120.

In certain situations, to facilitate non-disruptive transition during anupgrade, or to provide a gradual change delivery model during theapplication development process, both an earlier version of thecomponent and an updated (or new) version of the component may need toco-exist and execute in parallel the containerized environment for sometime. In certain embodiments, the test system 108 and the deploymentorchestrator system 116 include capabilities for enabling differentversions of a component of a containerized application to co-exist ondifferent computing nodes in a cluster of nodes of the containerizedenvironment at the same time. The systems additionally includecapabilities for enabling different network policies to be generated forand applied to the different versions of the component, where eachcomponent has potentially different network requirements. Additionaldetails related to the processing performed by the various systems ofthe computing environment 100 in FIG. 1 are described below in FIGS.2-7.

FIG. 2 depicts an example of an application deployed in a containerizedenvironment of the computing environment 100 shown in FIG. 1, accordingto certain embodiments. In the depicted example, the applicationcomprises an order processing application 200 that is deployed in acontainer-based framework within the production environment 122 of thecomputing environment 100. Multiple instances of each component areexecuted as containers on nodes within a cluster of nodes within thecontainer-based framework. By way of example, the container-basedframework may be implemented using a container orchestration tool suchas Kubernetes, OpenShift, Docker Swarm and the like.

In certain examples, the order processing application 200 may include aset of components. These components may include, but are not limited to:

-   -   a static web application front end component 202 providing user        experience in the web browser;    -   an Application programing Interface (API) gateway component 204        to the application, responsible for processing API calls from        the web application component 202 and forwarding them to        respective services implementing the business logic;    -   a collection of service components providing distinct functions        of the application such as processing orders, invoices and user        management. By way of example, the collection of service        components may include, but are not limited to, an order-service        component 206, a user-service component 208 and an        invoice-service component 210; and    -   data middleware component for storing and processing data,        including a database component 212 and a message queue component        214.

In certain examples, for purposes of discussion, it is assumed that thecomponents 202-214 can communicate directly with one another. In acertain implementation, each component is denoted by its name and acorresponding zone label. By way of example, the web application frontend component 202 may be denoted by a name “web-app” and a correspondingzone label “web.” Additional details of how zone labels are generatedfor components of a containerized application are described in FIG. 4.Further, in the depicted example, the web application front endcomponent 202 does not communicate with the other components that makeup the application 200 but the API gateway component 204 communicateswith the services 206, 208 and 210. Additionally, in this example, allthe service components, 206, 208 and 210 communicate with each other(but not necessarily each service reaches each other service), theservices communicate with the database service 212 and the order-service206 and invoice-service 210 access the message queue 214.

The different components of the order processing application 200depicted in FIG. 2 are merely an example and is not intended to undulylimit the scope of claimed embodiments. One of ordinary skill in the artwould recognize many possible variations, alternatives, andmodifications. For example, in some implementations, the orderprocessing application 200 may comprise more or fewer components thanthose shown in FIG. 1, may combine two or more components, or may have adifferent configuration or arrangement of components.

FIG. 3 depicts an example arrangement of components of the applicationshown in FIG. 2 on a cluster of nodes 300 in a container-basedframework, according to certain embodiments. Each node in the cluster ofnodes is assigned an Internet Protocol (IP) address. In the depictedexample, the cluster of nodes 300 consists of four nodes (node 1, node2, node 3 and node 4), each with an IP address within the range of itsnetwork, such as cloud Virtual Cloud Network (VCN) or physical network.The containers, residing on each of the nodes in the cluster use adifferent IP address range. Traffic between components on differentnodes is typically tunneled and container-to-container packages areencapsulated as node-to-node packages. The depicted example illustratesa specific arrangement of the components in a point in time snapshot ofthe container-based framework. The framework may re-arrange thecomponents or move them between nodes to distribute the load.Additionally, the specific containers may fail and new instances may getcreated, nodes may be added or removed and so forth. In each such case,since the IP addresses of the containers that change will also likelychange, any network filtering controls (e.g., network security policies)that are based on identifying components using their IP addresses may beimpractical or infeasible to implement by the container-based framework.

As previously described, in order to compensate for these challenges,container orchestration frameworks may include capabilities forcontrolling the communication (i.e., network traffic) between thecomponents of the application by using a set of one or more pre-defined(coarse-grained) network policies. For example, in a container-basedframework such as Kubernetes or OpenShift, the network policy may bedefined based on metadata of the specific components such as “zonelabels” as shown in FIG. 4. Additional examples of network policiesdefined by container-based frameworks for controlling network trafficbetween multiple components of a containerized application are describedin FIG. 4.

FIG. 4 depicts various examples of network polices defined by acontainer-based framework for a containerized application deployed on acluster of nodes in the container-based framework, according to certainembodiments. For purposes of discussion, the network policies 402, 404and 406 are described in relation to the order processing application200 described in FIGS. 2 and 3. In one implementation, as shown in table402, the set of policies may be defined using a “zone label” as a sourcelabel and a destination label for the components of the containerizedapplication (e.g., 200). In a certain implementation, the set ofpolicies may be implemented using JavaScript Object Notation (JSON)objects or as YAML objects. The zone-based network policies depicted intable 402 may permit some traffic that is not part of the regular systemoperation, such as connectivity from the user-service component 208 tothe database component 212. These zone-based policies will not requireto be updated when routine incremental changes occur to thecontainerized application, such as when more services or databasemiddleware are added to the application. The zone-based policies alsocontinue to be operational if more services begin to communicate witheach other, such as, for example, the order-service component 206 andthe invoice-service component 210. Also, the zone-based policies definedby the container-based framework typically allow traffic between thecomponents, unless a certain path is specifically covered by the policy.For this reason, in order to deny the internal traffic to certaincomponents (such as ‘web’ or ‘front’ zones), the zone-based polices mayinclude policy directives with an empty origin denoted with ‘-’.

In another approach, as shown in table 404, the set of policies may beimplemented using an “app label” as a source label and a destinationlabel where the “app label” uniquely identifies the components of thecontainer-based application. In this implementation, the policy thatmost precisely reflects the network traffic in the system will take theform shown in table 404. Such a policy may disallow any traffic notexpected in the system but changes to the application will requirecorresponding policy changes to be applied to the components of theapplication.

In yet another implementation, the container-based framework mayimplement a more balanced policy that takes advantage of both of the“zone label” and the “app label” used to uniquely identify thecomponents of the application. For example, a security analysis of theapplication may reveal that a key component of concern is the messagequeue component 214. While it is acceptable to have general zone-basedrules between the api-gateway component 204 and the services 206, 208and 210, the services themselves, the database component 212 and thecommunication with the message queue component 214 need to be strictlyrestricted to the services that need the access. In such a case, the setof policies may take a form shown in table 406. It is to be appreciatedthat the terms, “zone label” and “app label” used in this disclosure areillustrations of one type of grouping of components that may be utilizedin an application for defining the flow of network traffic within theapplication. For instance, a “zone label” may identify a first group ofcomponents to which a first version of the component can send trafficand an “app label” may identify a second group of components to whichthe first version of the component can send traffic. The “zone label”may identify a larger group (e.g., a set) of components that the firstversion of the component can send traffic while the “app label” mayidentify a specific set (e.g., a subset) of components within the largergroup that the first version of the component can send traffic. Inalternate embodiments, different label names, different label groups ordifferent layers of labels (e.g., a zone cell, a four layer model forreferencing the component and the like) may be used to identify andgroup components of an application.

As previously described, in certain situations, a user of an enterprisemay wish to add an updated version of an existing component of theapplication when the operation performed by an earlier/previous versionof the component changes. For instance, based on the example of thecontainerized application 200 shown in FIG. 2, an updated version of theuser-service component 208 may be required to communicate with themessage queue component 214 instead of the database component 212. FIG.5 is an example of the containerized application shown in FIG. 2depicting a change in the operation of one of the components within thecontainerized application, according to certain embodiments. In theembodiment depicted in FIG. 5, a change in the operation performed bythe user-service component 208 results in the user-service component 208communicating with the message queue component 214 instead of thedatabase component 212. If the change in the operation has to begradually enabled in the application, both the previous version as wellas the updated version of the user-service component 208 have toco-exist and operate in the deployed application for some time. In thissituation, the deployed application 200 will contain two versions of theuser-service component 208, a previous version that requires networkaccess to the database component 212, but not to the message queuecomponent 214, and another (updated) version that requires access tomessage queue component 214, but not to the database component 212.

A coarse-grained policy, based on “zone labels” as depicted in table 402in FIG. 4 may allow the containerized application to operate/executecorrectly with either version of the component and with both versions ofthe components running together. However, such a coarse-grained policymay not be considered sufficiently secure as it allows communicationthat is not part of regular system operation. At the same time, the user(e.g., a system administrator) would prefer that any policy would becontained in the boundaries defined by the coarse-grained policy.

A fine-grained policy, for example, based on “app labels” as depicted intable 404, will result in a containerized application that initiallyallows traffic from the user-service component 208 to the databasecomponent 212 only. This policy will prevent the updated version of theuser-service component 208 to communicate with the message-queuecomponent 214 after the updated version is deployed. However, an updatedpolicy that only allows communication with the message-queue component214 will disrupt the previous version. Finally, a single policy whichallows communication with both versions of components in the data zonemay not be sufficiently precise either. Such a policy will allow theprevious version of the user-service component to communicate with themessage-queue component 214 and the updated version of the user-servicecomponent to communicate with the database component. However, boththose paths may be overly permissive.

To address these challenges, the disclosed system provides improvedtechniques for automatically inferring fine-grained network policies(e.g., network security policies) from the observed workload in thecomputing environment. The system provides a mechanism to createprecise, per-component network policies, while respecting anycoarse-grained policies of the containerized application and/or priorexisting fine-grained network policies. In certain embodiments, thesystem includes capabilities for aligning the policy management with thelifecycle of corresponding components of the containerized application.The system builds network policies that are linked to particulardeployment packages. The techniques for generating per-componentpolicies by the disclosed system is seamless and does not requireadditional labelling by users of the enterprise. Additional details ofthe operations performed by the systems shown in FIG. 1 for generatingnetwork policies for different components are described in FIG. 6.

FIG. 6 depicts additional details of the operations performed by thesystems shown in FIG. 1 for generating network policies for componentsof an application deployed in a computing environment, according tocertain embodiments. The computing environment 600 may be implemented byone or more computing systems that execute computer-readableinstructions (e.g., code, program) to implement the computingenvironment. As depicted in FIG. 6, the computing environment 600 mayinclude a test environment 112 or a production environment 122 asdescribed with respect to FIG. 1. The test environment or productionenvironment 112/122 includes one or more nodes 605 (a-n) that host oneor more containerized components 610 (a-n). The test environment orproduction environment 112/122 assigns a specific IP address or portrange to the components 610 and provides an ability (e.g., anapplication programming interface (API)) to discover the components 610through the IP address/port. A network monitoring agent 615 isprovisioned to run on the nodes 605 and adapted to monitor trafficoriginating from the components 610 through the IP address/port.Depending on the container framework, and the network implementation,the network monitoring may be implemented as part of every component(container) or as a single instance for the node. The decision on thelocation may be based on the practical reasons and availability ofinstrumentation mechanisms within the specific container framework. Insome configurations, such as when the container network is used withoutan overlay/tunneling, but instead built on top of the lower-levelnetwork, the component may be centrally located within the network. Inaddition, existing cluster monitoring tools, such as Prometheus forKubernetes, could be used to supply the data to the system.

The test environment or production environment 112/122 further includesa component lookup module 620, a component monitor module 625, a policycreator 630, a connections queue data store 635, and a traffic datastore 640. The component lookup module 620 is adapted to identify thecomponents 610 based on their IP address/port. The component monitormodule 625 is adapted to actively monitor the cluster of nodes 605 fornew components 610 being added to the nodes 605 or component 610 changeswithin the nodes 605. The policy creator 630 is adapted to createnetwork policies from the traffic data monitored by the networkmonitoring agents 615. The connections queue data store 635 is a queueof traffic data supplied by the network monitoring agents 615 forprocessing by the component lookup module 620, component monitor module625, and policy creator 630. The traffic data store 640 is a set ofcomponent-to-component flow data that includes connections betweencomponents 610 monitored/identified by the network monitoring agents615, the component lookup module 620, and the component monitor module625. The test environment or production environment 112/122 is adaptedto allow for the specification of network policies 655 (via the policycreator 630) that are based on component metadata for components 610discovered/identified by the component lookup module 620 and thecomponent monitor module 625. The test environment or productionenvironment 112/122 may receive commands and input from a containerframework control plane 645 and/or an operator 650. Portions of data orinformation including the network policies 655 used by or generated bysystems of the computing environment 600 as part of its processing maybe stored in a persistent memory such as a network policy data store660.

The systems and subsystems depicted in FIG. 6 may be implemented usingsoftware (e.g., code, instructions, program) executed by one or moreprocessing units (e.g., processors, cores) of a computing system,hardware, or combinations thereof. The software may be stored on anon-transitory storage medium (e.g., on a memory device). The computingenvironment 600 depicted in FIG. 6 is merely an example and is notintended to unduly limit the scope of claimed embodiments. One ofordinary skill in the art would recognize many possible variations,alternatives, and modifications. For example, in some implementations,the computing environment 600 can be implemented using more or fewersubsystems than those shown in FIG. 6, may combine two or moresubsystems, or may have a different configuration or arrangement ofsubsystems.

In certain embodiments, a user (e.g., via the UI of a user device 102)may provide a component 610 of an application (e.g., 104) to the testenvironment or production environment 112/122 to be deployed as part ofthe application deployed in the computing environment. For instance, aspart of the application development process, the user may develop a newcomponent for the application or may create an updated version of anexisting component of the application for deployment in the computingenvironment. As previously described, the application may represent acontainerized application deployed in the production environment 122. Incertain examples, the application may comprise multiple components 610where multiple instances of each component may be executed as containerson nodes 605 within a cluster of nodes in the production environment122.

In various embodiments, an acceptance test subsystem within the testenvironment 112 receives the component 610 and tests it prior to itsdeployment in the containerized environment. In certain embodiments,testing the component may involve generating network policies regardingthe components, performing a policy compliance test, and performing afunctional acceptance test. The generating the network policies andperforming a policy compliance test for the component, in certainexamples, involves, obtaining, by the acceptance test subsystem,information identifying the network connections (i.e., the networkpaths) originating from the various components 610 on the nodes 605. Incertain embodiments, the network paths originating from the component610 may be discovered by the network monitoring agent 615 that iscommunicatively coupled to the acceptance test subsystem via acommunication network. The network monitoring agent 615 monitors thetraffic originating from the network interfaces corresponding to thecontainers that execute the application's components 610. Once a newnetwork connection is detected (e.g., upon integration of the newcomponent being tested into a node), the network monitoring agent 615records details of the new network connection data (e.g., source anddestination address, ports, etc.) and the time of the connection (e.g.,a time stamp), which is sent to the connections queue data store 635 fordownstream processing.

While the network monitoring agent 615 records details of the newnetwork connection, the component monitor module 625 observes thecomponents 610 through the framework's control plane 645. The componentmonitor module 625 records any changes to component arrangement (e.g.,integration of the new component being tested into a node),corresponding network addresses, and time of changes, and stores thedata in a cache or local data store 665 for lookup. Along with thecorresponding network address and time, the component monitor module 625also obtains, through the framework's control plane 645, componentmetadata (e.g., labels for the components 610) that is relevant to thecreation of network policies, and stores the component metadata inassociation with the data (e.g., component arrangement, correspondingnetwork addresses, and time of changes) in the cache or local data store665 for lookup. The component lookup module 620 processes the newnetwork connection data from the connections queue data store 635. Forthe new network connection data in the connections queue data store 635,the component lookup module 620 communicates with the component monitormodule 625 providing details of each new network connection data (e.g.,source and destination address, ports, time stamp, etc.), and receivesthe information about the components 610 involved in the new networkconnection (e.g., component arrangement and network addresses) and theirmetadata, matching corresponding network addresses and time. Thecomponent lookup module 620 then stores the processed information(component metadata for components at both ends of new networkconnection, network addresses, ports, time stamps, etc.) in the trafficdata store 640. The traffic data store 640 has a form of a set, and anyduplicate information will not be recorded.

In order to identify cluster components 610 from the network connectiondata, the addresses for the traffic need to be matched to thecorresponding components. This may be implemented in multiple ways. Insome instances, this may be implemented by actively querying thecontainer framework control plane 645 every time a connection isobserved, by the component monitor module 625. Such approach results insimple implementation but increases the overhead of the discoveryprocess, and may not be feasible in configurations with large amounts ofnetwork connections. The network monitoring agent 615, located close tothe source, may already contain enough information about the source ofthe network connection to provide that data. Then, only the destinationinformation requires a query. In other instances, the component monitormodule 625 caches the information about IP/port to component mapping.This information may be reused to reduce the number of queries. Anextension of this approach is to have the component monitor module 625monitor the cluster changes and keep the current mapping available forfast lookup. Finally, the component monitor module 625 can retain entirehistory of the cluster components along with their addresses and thetime of any changes. This way every connection can be mapped to thecorresponding component at a later stage. This may allow the correlationoperation to be done asynchronously, or even as a batch operation afterthe data collection is completed. The system may provide an insight intothe process by reporting how many new communication or data paths arefound. If no new path is found and the system is known to operate withfull set of features, this may indicate that sufficient data has beengathered.

After obtaining the processed information identifying the networkconnections originating from the components 610, as part of performingthe policy compliance test for a given component (e.g., the new orupdated component), the acceptance test subsystem then determines if thenetwork connections that the component are attempting to use are incompliance with the coarse-grained policy defined for the application.As noted herein, a coarse-grained policy may be developed by a user(e.g. a developer of the enterprise) of the application. For instance, acoarse-grained policy for an application (e.g., 114) shown in FIG. 2 maybe developed using “zone labels” as shown in table 404 of FIG. 4.

In certain embodiments, in addition to the policy compliance test, theacceptance test subsystem may also perform functional testing of thecomponent to confirm that the functionality of the component is behavingas expected. The functional testing may be performed before, after, orin parallel with generating policies and performing the policycompliance test for the component. As a result of performing thefunctional acceptance test and the policy compliance test for thecomponent, the acceptance test subsystem outputs a test result. The testresult outputs information indicative of the success or failure of thefunctional test and/or the policy compliance test. For instance, if thecomponent did not successfully pass the functional test (in presence ofthe coarse-grained network policy), the test result may outputinformation indicating that the functional test failed and that thecomponent cannot not be deployed in the containerized environment. Theinformation that is output by the test result in this case may alsoindicate that a functional bug exists in the execution of the component.If the failure was a result of a coarse-grained policy violation, thetest result may output information indicating that the component isattempting to use a network path that is not allowed by thecoarse-grained policy. If the component passes the functional test, buta coarse-grained policy violation was detected, the test result mayoutput information indicating that the component will not deployed dueto a problem with test coverage.

If the component passes the functional test and no violation of thecoarse-grained policy is detected, the test result may indicate that thecomponent can be successfully deployed to production. In this case, thepolicy creator 630 accesses the traffic data store 640, retrieves thepertinent processed information (component metadata for components atboth ends of new network connection, network addresses, ports, timestamps, etc.), and creates a network policy 655 (i.e., a fine-grainedcomponent-specific network policy) for the component. Various differenttechniques may be used to create a network policy. An example of onesuch technique is described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. ______[Attorney Docket No. 088325-1195186-275300US], entitled “Techniques ForGenerating Network Security Policies For Application Components DeployedIn A Computing Environment,” and filed concurrently with the presentapplication. The entire contents of the aforementioned application isincorporated herein by reference in its entirety for all purposes.Depending on the nature of the network policy 655 in the specificapplication framework, the policy creator 630 may also contact thecomponent monitor module 625 to obtain a list of components in thesystem to identify ones that did not take part in any connection. Thismay be required to explicitly block the traffic to those components viathe network policy 655. The policy creator 630 may also take additionalconfiguration input from the system operator 650. The input from thesystem operator 650 may inform how the network policy 655 is to becreated, for example what properties of the components should be used,whether some components should be excluded from the network policy 655,and so forth. The network policy 655 is then created.

In some embodiments, creating the network policy 655 for the componentinvolves, generating, by the policy creator 630, a component identifierfor the component and associating the component with the componentidentifier. In certain examples, the component identifier is a “versionlabel” that identifies the current version of the component. The versionlabel for a component may represent, for instance, a current timestamp,a commit identifier, or a version identifier for the component. Thepolicy creator 630 uses the version label and the portion of the networktraffic (from the network paths discovered by the monitoring agent 615)originating from the currently processed component to generate afine-grained network policy 655 for the component. Examples offine-grained policies generated by the policy creator 630 are describedin detail herein, using the example of the order processing applicationdepicted in FIG. 2. The component, fine-grained policy and otherdeployment artifacts (such as deployment manifests) are packagedtogether to create a deployment package for the component.

In certain examples, a deployment orchestrator system in the productionenvironment 122 receives the deployment package and uses the deploymentpackage to deploy the component(s) of the application and theirassociated network policies to different nodes in a cluster of nodeswithin a containerized environment of the production environment 122.The deployed application executes in the containerized environment. In aspecific implementation, the containerized environment may be providedby a container orchestration tool such as Kubernetes or OpenShift. Incertain examples, the deployment orchestrator system may store the finegrained network policies 610 associated with the component(s) in thenetwork policy data store 660.

In certain embodiments, the deployment orchestrator system may beconfigured to align the lifecycle of a component with its correspondingfine-grained network policy. For example, for a container-basedorchestration platform such as Kubernetes or OpenShift, the alignment ofthe lifecycle of the component with its corresponding fine-grainednetwork policy can be implemented using an Operator pattern thatreplaces the regular interfaces related to deployment of the componentand instead accepts a deployment package comprised of the component andits associated fine-grained network policy. In other examples, anadmission controller may be used to capture any operations on the pod.Such a controller may automatically add or remove a correspondingnetwork policy with a matching label when the component is added/removedfrom the cluster. A network policy and its component may also bepackaged together in a higher-level object such as a Helm chart thatwill automatically control the deployment of multiple objects together.

In various embodiments, the operations performed by the systems shown inthe computerized environment 600 described above may be combined with acontinuous integration/continuous deployment process within theproduction environment 122. The process may cover the entire lifecyclefrom building a component to integration/acceptance testing of thecomponent and deployment of the component in the cluster of nodes. Insome embodiments, the data capture (e.g., connection and componentdiscovery) may be done initially in the production environment withoutactive policy or with course-grained active policies. After sufficientdata is gathered, the fine-grained network policies may be created andenabled. As discussed with respect to the testing environment 112, thenetwork paths originating from the components 610 may be discovered bythe network monitoring agent 615 during deployment. The networkmonitoring agent 615 may continuously monitor the traffic originatingfrom the network interfaces corresponding to the containers that executethe application's components 610. Once a network connection is detected(e.g., upon integration of the new component being tested into a node)or a change in a network connection is discovered, the networkmonitoring agent 615 records details of the new or changed networkconnection data (e.g., source and destination address, ports, etc.) andthe time of the connection (e.g., a time stamp), which is sent to theconnections queue data store 635 for downstream processing.

While the network monitoring agent 615 records details of the networkconnections in deployment, the component monitor module 625 observes thecomponents 610 through the framework's control plane 645. The componentmonitor module 625 records any changes to component arrangement (e.g.,replacement of components that fail during deployment), correspondingnetwork addresses, and time of changes, and stores the data in a cacheor local data store 665 for lookup. Along with the corresponding networkaddress and time, the component monitor module 625 also obtains, throughthe framework's control plane 645, component metadata (e.g., labels forthe components 610) that is relevant to the creation of networkpolicies, and stores the component metadata in association with the data(e.g., component arrangement, corresponding network addresses, and timeof changes) in the cache or local data store 665 for lookup. Thecomponent lookup module 620 processes the network connection data fromthe connections queue data store 635. For the network connection data inthe connections queue data store 635, the component lookup module 620communicates with the component monitor module 625 providing details ofeach network connection data (e.g., source and destination address,ports, time stamp, etc.), and receives the information about thecomponents 610 involved in the network connection (e.g., componentarrangement and network addresses) and their metadata, matchingcorresponding network addresses and time. The component lookup module620 then stores the processed information (component metadata forcomponents at both ends of new network connection, network addresses,ports, time stamps, etc.) in the traffic data store 640.

The policy creator 630 accesses the traffic data store 640, retrievesthe pertinent processed information (component metadata for componentsat both ends of new network connection, network addresses, ports, timestamps, etc.), and dynamically creates network policies 655 (i.e., afine-grained component-specific network policy) for the components basedon changing conditions within the nodes and component arrangements.Depending on the nature of the network policy 655 in the specificapplication framework, the policy creator 630 may also contact thecomponent monitor module 625 to obtain a list of components in thesystem to identify ones that did not take part in any connection. Thismay be required to explicitly block the traffic to those components viathe network policy 655. The policy creator 630 may also take additionalconfiguration input from the system operator 650. The input from thesystem operator 650 may inform how the network policy 655 is to becreated, for example what properties of the components should be used,whether some components should be excluded from the network policy 655,and so forth. The network policy 655 is then created as described withrespect to the test environment 112.

Additional details related to the operations performed by the systemsshown in the computerized environment 600 for generating componentspecific network policies (i.e., fine-grained network policies) forcomponents of an application deployed in a containerized environment arenow described using the order processing application 200 depicted inFIGS. 2 and 5. In a specific implementation, the containerizedenvironment is provided by a container orchestration platform such asKubernetes. The cluster of nodes is initially configured with a deny-allpolicy. Such a policy can be created by matching a component (or a pod)with a label (e.g., a zone label or an app label depicted in FIG. 4)while specifying no network traffic. As previously described, a pod mayrefer to a set of one or more components of an application that may beprocessed by the orchestration tool at a time.

A coarse-grained policy for the order processing application 200 may berepresented using “zone labels” as shown in table 402. This may be usedin the test environment of the test system to perform a policycompliance test for the component as described in FIG. 6. Now considerthat the test system receives an update to the user-service component208 or a change occurs to the user-service component 205 duringdeployment. Before receiving the new version of the user-servicecomponent 205 or replacing a user-service component 208 in deployment,the component-specific network policy (i.e., the fine-grained networkpolicy) related to user-service component 208 may be depicted as shownbelow:

{app: user-service, zone: services, version: 1582630603} -> {app:database}

The fine-grained policy reflects a current, and at this point in time,the only version of the user-service component 208 that is grantedaccess to the database component 212. A user of the system prepares anupdated version of the user-service component 208 or the system itselfidentifies a defective user-service component 208 in deployment andprepares another version of the user-service component 208 to be placedonline. This version of the user-service component 208 no longer usesthe database component 212 but uses the message-queue component 214instead. It is intended that the new or updated version of theuser-service component 208 will co-exist with the previous version forsome time to allow a smooth transition in the operation of theapplication. Using the zone labels and the app labels shown in FIG. 4,the user-service component 208 may be identified using the followinglabels:

{app: user-service, zone: services}

When the updated version of the user-service component 208 is received,the component is packaged in a container and deployed into the test orproduction environment. The test or production environment isimplemented as a Kubernetes workload and the user-service component 208is deployed in the cluster. Component lookup module 620 and componentmonitor module 625, policy creator 630 and data stores 635; 640; 660;665 may be located in a separate namespace in test or productionenvironment. In addition, the monitoring agents 615 are deployed onevery worker nodes using for example a DeamonSet that will guarantee asingle instance running on every node. The monitoring agents 615 run asprivileged containers and set up local firewall (iptables) rules toreceive the traffic from the virtual interfaces corresponding to thepods in the system. The component monitor module 625 may be operatingwith a service account that provides a read access to the Kubernetes APIserver and sets up a webhook that makes API server to send all thechanges as they occur within the test or production environment. Thecomponents are configured to ignore the network traffic corresponding tothe system itself, such as traffic originating from monitoring agents615. During acceptance testing of the component or during instantiationof the component in the production environment, a network path from theuser-service component 208 to the message-queue component 214 isdiscovered by the monitoring agent 615.

For example, as the application runs it may be subjected to the testautomation, the traffic data is gathered by monitoring agent 615, whichis recorded to the connections queue 635. For example, following thearrangement in FIG. 3, the initial data captured may be as follows:

... 10.244.1.3 → 10.244.1.5:443 10.244.2.8 → 10.244.2.12:443 10.244.1.3→ 10.244.2.9:443 10.44.1.4 → 10.244.1.6:443 10.44.1.4 → 10.244.4.22:443...Note, that for simpler presentation the source ports have been omittedthat are not relevant in this specific example. The timestamps have alsobeen omitted as, in the scope of this example it is assumed that thearrangements of pods will not change.

In the meantime, the component monitor module 625, builds a list ofcomponents 610 in the system, reflecting the arrangement in FIG. 3.

... 10.244.1.3 → {name: invoice-service, labels: {zone: services, app:invoice-service}} 10.244.2.8 → {name: invoice-service, labels: {zone:services, app: invoice-service}} 10.244.1.4 → {name: order-service,labels: {zone: services, app: order-service}} 10.244.1.6 → {name:database, labels: {zone: data, app: database}} 10.244.2.12 → {name:database, labels: {zone: data, app: database}} 10.244.2.9 → {name:message-queue, labels: {zone: data, app: message-queue}} 10.244.4.22 →{name: message-queue, labels: {zone: data, app: message-queue}} ...

The component lookup module 620 processes the network connectioninformation, that results in:

... {name: invoice-service, labels: {zone: services, app: invoice-service}} → {name: database, labels: {zone: data, app: database}, port:443} {name: invoice-service, labels: {zone: services, app: invoice-service}} → {name: message-queue, labels: {zone: data, app:message-queue}, port: 443} {name: order-service, labels: {zone:services, app: order- service}} → {name: database, labels: {zone: data,app: database}, port: 443} {name: order-service, labels: {zone:services, app: order- service}} → {name: message-queue, labels: {zone:data, app: message-queue}, port: 443} ...Note, the traffic captured in this example, covers the initialconnections from order and invoice services to the database and messagequeue. Even though the 5 connections are analyzed, the captured trafficinformation results in only 4 items, as the first and second connectionsare two different instances of the same invoice service component andresult in the same traffic data. The process continues through theentire lifecycle of the test phase.

The test or production environment may include a coarse-grained networkpolicy which may be represented as shown below:

{zone: services}->{zone: data}This coarse-grained network policy allows general traffic betweenservices and data zones. The acceptance test passes successfully andthere is no policy violation detected. The policy creator 630 creates a“version label” for the user-service component 208 and associates a“version label” identifier with the component. As an example, the“version label” identifier may be set to ‘1582650759’ (which, in thisexample, represents a current timestamp). As a result, the updatedversion of the user-service component 208 may be identified using thelabels shown below:{app: user-service, zone: services, version: 1582650759}

The policy creator 630 then creates a fine-grained network policy forthe updated version of the user-service component that reflects thediscovered network paths from the user-service component and includesall of the component labels. An example of a fine-grained network policycreated for the user-service component is shown below:

{app: user-service, zone: services, version: 1582650759} -> {app:message- queue, zone: data}In some instances, fine-grained network policy identifies the componentsthat did not receive any internal traffic, such as api-gateway andweb-app shown in the network policy 406 of FIG. 4

The fine-grained network policy is packaged with the updated version ofthe user-service component into a container and deployed to a node orbrought online within a node in a cluster of nodes in the containerizedenvironment. When the new or updated version of the user-servicecomponent is deployed, its corresponding fine-grained network policy isalso added to the node.

As a result, the cluster of nodes now has two versions of theuser-service component, with the following labels:

-   -   Previous Version: {app: user-service, zone: services, version:        1582630603}    -   Updated Version: {app: user-service, zone: services, version:        1582650759}

Also, the cluster of nodes has two separate fine-grained networkpolicies for the user-service component for the previous and updatedversions of the component as shown below:

-   -   {app: user-service, zone: services, version: 1582630603}->{app:        database, zone: data}    -   {app: user-service, zone: services, version: 1582650759}->{app:        message-queue, zone: data}

Eventually, the previous version of the user-service component isretired and removed from the cluster of nodes. As a result, thecorresponding network policy is also removed. At that point, the clusterof nodes contains only a single network policy for the user servicecomponent as shown below:

{app: user-service, zone: services, version: 1582650759} -> {app:message- queue, zone: data}

FIG. 7 is an example of a process for generating a network policy for acomponent of an application executing in a containerized environment,according to certain embodiments. The processing depicted in FIG. 7 maybe implemented in software only (e.g., code, instructions, program)executed by one or more processing units (e.g., processors, cores) ofthe respective systems, hardware only, or combinations thereof. Thesoftware may be stored on a non-transitory storage medium (e.g., on amemory device). The process 700 presented in FIG. 7 and described belowis intended to be illustrative and non-limiting. Although FIG. 7 depictsthe various processing steps occurring in a particular sequence ororder, this is not intended to be limiting. In certain alternativeembodiments, the steps may be performed in some different order or somesteps may also be performed in parallel. In certain embodiments, such asin the embodiment depicted in FIG. 6, the processing depicted in FIG. 7may be performed by a data processing system comprising the acceptancetest subsystem, the network monitoring subsystem comprising themonitoring agents, component lookup module, component monitor module,and related data stores, and the network policy creation subsystemcomprising the policy creator, network policies, and related datastores.

In the embodiment depicted in FIG. 7, processing is initiated at block702 when the acceptance test subsystem determines/obtains a set of oneor more pre-defined network security policies (i.e., coarse-grainednetwork security polices 117) defined for the testenvironment/application. As previously described, the set of pre-definednetwork security policies may be defined, for example, by a user of theenterprise and these policies reflect general network trafficexpectations of the flow of network traffic between the components ofthe application in the test environment. For example, a coarse-grainedpolicy for the order processing application 200 (shown in FIG. 2) may berepresented using “zone labels” as shown in table 402 of FIG. 4.

At block 704, the acceptance test subsystem receives a component to bedeployed as part of a deployed application in the computing environment.As previously described, the component may be a new component of theapplication or an updated version of an existing component of theapplication for deployment in the computing environment.

At block 706, the acceptance test subsystem performs a policy compliancetest for the component. As part of performing this test, in certainexamples, the acceptance test subsystem provides the component to thenetwork monitoring subsystem which monitors the network traffic flow toand from the component at block 708. At block 710, the networkmonitoring subsystem 606 identifies a set of one or more network pathsfor the component based on the monitoring. In certain examples, anetwork path in the set of network paths identifies a source componentfrom which the component receives packets and/or a target component towhich the component sends packets. At block 712, for each network pathidentified in block 712, the acceptance test subsystem performs a policycompliance test to determine that the network path does not violate anyof the coarse-grained policies determined in block 702 for the testenvironment/application.

In certain embodiments, in addition to the policy compliance testperformed at block 706, the acceptance test subsystem may also performfunctional testing of the component 106 at block 714 to confirm that thefunctionality of the component is behaving as expected. The functionaltesting may be performed before, after, or in parallel with performingthe policy compliance test for the component.

At block 716, the acceptance test subsystem 716 performs a check todetermine if the functional testing of the component passed and that thecoarse-grained network security policies determined in block 702 are notviolated by any network path identified in block 710.

If the component passes the functional test and no violation of thecoarse-grained policy is detected, the acceptance test subsystem deploysthe component to production at block 720. Additional details of theoperations performed by the acceptance test subsystem to deploy thecomponent to production are described below with respect to the processdepicted in FIG. 8 and its accompanying description. If the componentdoes not pass the functional test and/or a coarse-grained policyviolation is detected, the acceptance test subsystem outputs informationat block 718 indicating that the component should not be deployed toproduction.

FIG. 8 is an example of a process for detecting network connections,detecting components within a containerized environment, and generatinga network policy for a component of an application executing in thecontainerized environment, according to another embodiment. Theprocessing depicted in FIG. 8 describes additional details of theoperations performed in block 720 of FIG. 7. The processing depicted inFIG. 8 may be implemented in software only (e.g., code, instructions,program) executed by one or more processing units (e.g., processors,cores) of the respective systems, hardware only, or combinationsthereof. The software may be stored on a non-transitory storage medium(e.g., on a memory device). The process 800 presented in FIG. 8 anddescribed below is intended to be illustrative and non-limiting.Although FIG. 8 depicts the various processing steps occurring in aparticular sequence or order, this is not intended to be limiting. Incertain alternative embodiments, the steps may be performed in somedifferent order or some steps may also be performed in parallel. Incertain embodiments, such as in the embodiment depicted in FIG. 6, theprocessing depicted in FIG. 8 may be performed by a data processingsystem comprising the network monitoring subsystem comprising themonitoring agents, component lookup module, component monitor module,and related data stores, and the network policy creation subsystemcomprising the policy creator, network policies, and related datastores.

In certain embodiments, the processing depicted in the embodiment ofFIG. 8 is triggered when a component is to be deployed as part of adeployed application (at block 704 of FIG. 7) or during use of thecomponent in a production environment (e.g., without an active policy orwith only use of a course-grain policy). At block 805, the networkmonitoring subsystem monitors network traffic flow originating fromnetwork interfaces corresponding to containers that execute componentsof an application. At block 810, the network monitoring subsystemdetects a new network connection or a change in an existing networkconnection within the network traffic based on the monitoring of thenetwork traffic flow. In response to detecting the new networkconnection or the change in the existing network connection, at block815, the network monitoring subsystem records details of the new networkconnection or the change in the existing network connection. The detailsinclude a network address of a source component and a network address ofa destination component for the new network connection or the change inthe existing network connection. In some instances, the details furtherinclude a time stamp for the new network connection or the change in theexisting network connection.

At block 820, the network monitoring subsystem obtains informationconcerning the components of the application. The information includesthe network address and metadata associated with each of the componentsof the application. In some instances, the information further includesany changes to arrangement of the components and time of the changes,and the metadata comprises labels associated with each of the componentsof the application.

At block 825, the network monitoring subsystem identifies metadata forthe source component and the destination component based on a comparisonof at least the network address of the source component and the networkaddress of the destination component to the network address associatedwith each of the components of the application. In some instances, themetadata comprises labels associated with each of the components of theapplication. The labels may be component identifiers comprising aversion label that uniquely identifies the component. The version labelmay include, but is not limited to, timestamp, a commit identifier, or aversion identifier for the component.

Optionally, the network monitoring subsystem identifies a subset ofcomponents of the components of the application that are not involved inthe new network connection or the change in the existing networkconnection based on the comparison of at least the network address ofthe source component and the network address of the destinationcomponent to the network address associated with each of the componentsof the application.

At block 830, the network security policy creation subsystem generates anetwork policy (e.g., a fine-grained network security policy (i.e., acomponent-specific network security policy) for the source component orthe destination component using at least the metadata for the sourcecomponent and the destination component. The network policy comprisesinformation representative of the new network connection or the changein the existing network connection. The network policy may furthercomprise information indicating that the network policy is applicable toa defined version of the source component or the destination component.In some instances, the network policy for the source component or thedestination component is generated using the metadata for the sourcecomponent and the destination component, the time stamp for the newnetwork connection or the change in the existing network connection, thetime of the changes associated with the arrangement of the sourcecomponent or the destination component, the subset of components of thecomponents of the application that are not involved in the new networkconnection or the change in the existing network connection, or anycombination thereof.

At block 835, the network policy creation subsystem generates adeployment package comprising the source component or the destinationcomponent and the network policy associated with the source component orthe destination component. The generating deployment package comprisesintegrating the network policy for the source component or thedestination component into the deployment package for the application.

At block 840, the network policy creation subsystem deploys thedeployment package in the production environment. In certain examples,deploying the deployment package includes deploying the source componentor the destination component and its associated network policy to acomputing node in a cluster of nodes in a containerized environment. Aspreviously described, in certain examples, the containerized environmentmay be provided by a container orchestration platform such asKubernetes, OpenShift, Docker Swarm and the like.

In certain embodiments, the disclosed systems include capabilities forenabling different versions of a component of a containerizedapplication to co-exist on different computing nodes in a cluster ofnodes of the containerized environment at the same time. The systemsadditionally include capabilities for enabling different networkpolicies to be applied to the different versions of the component, whereeach component has potentially different network requirements. By way ofexample, a first computing node in the cluster of nodes may deploy afirst version of a component. The first version of the component may,for instance, be an updated version of a previous version (e.g., asecond version) of the component. In certain examples, the secondversion of the component may be deployed to second computing node in thecluster of nodes. The first version of the component may be associatedwith a first network security policy where the first network securitypolicy comprises information indicating that the first network securitypolicy is applicable to first version of the component identified by thecomponent identifier. As described above, the first network securitypolicy may additionally identify at least one other component to whichthe first version of the component sends and receives network traffic.In certain examples, the first network security policy may also identifya zone label and an application label.

The second version of the component may be associated with a secondnetwork security policy where the second network security policycomprises information indicating that the second network security policyis applicable to the second version of the component identified by acomponent identifier that uniquely identifies the second version of thecomponent. In certain embodiments, at least one network path in the setof network paths for the first version of the component may be differentfrom a network path in a set of network paths for the second version ofthe component. A first deployment package comprising the first versionof the component and the first network security policy is deployed tothe first computing node and a second deployment package comprising thesecond version of the component and the second network security policyis deployed to the second computing node

FIG. 9 is an example of a process of the manner in which the networksecurity policy of a component may be utilized, according to certainembodiments. The processing depicted in FIG. 9 may be implemented insoftware only (e.g., code, instructions, program) executed by one ormore processing units (e.g., processors, cores) of the respectivesystems, hardware only, or combinations thereof. The software may bestored on a non-transitory storage medium (e.g., on a memory device).The process 900 presented in FIG. 9 and described below is intended tobe illustrative and non-limiting. Although FIG. 9 depicts the variousprocessing steps occurring in a particular sequence or order, this isnot intended to be limiting. In certain alternative embodiments, thesteps may be performed in some different order or some steps may also beperformed in parallel. In certain embodiments, such as in the embodimentdepicted in FIG. 6, the processing depicted in FIG. 9 may be performedby the deployment orchestrator system 116 in the production environment.

At block 902, the process involves identifying a flow of network trafficfrom a specific component (that is deployed as part of a deployedapplication) to another component of the application or the flow ofnetwork traffic from another component to the specific component. Atblock 904, the process involves determining a component identifier forthe component (e.g., within metadata associated with the component). Atblock 906, the process involves determining a network security policyfor the component based on the component identifier. At block 908, theprocess involves either allowing or disallowing the flow of networktraffic for the component based on the identified network securitypolicy.

The present disclosure offers several advantages including the abilityto generate network security policies for different versions of acomponent of an application deployed in a computing environment wherethe different versions have potentially different network requirementsand the different versions operate together at the same time in thecomputing environment. The disclosed systems include capabilities forenabling different versions of a component of a containerizedapplication to co-exist at the same time on different computing nodes ina cluster of nodes in a containerized environment that deploys andexecutes the application. The disclosed systems additionally includecapabilities for enabling different network policies to be generated forthe different versions of the component, where each component haspotentially different network requirements. The disclosed systemsprovide a mechanism to create precise, per-component network policies,while respecting the overall coarse-grained policies of thecontainerized application.

Example Architectures

As noted above, infrastructure as a service (IaaS) is one particulartype of cloud computing. IaaS can be configured to provide virtualizedcomputing resources over a public network (e.g., the Internet). In anIaaS model, a cloud computing provider can host the infrastructurecomponents (e.g., servers, storage devices, network nodes (e.g.,hardware), deployment software, platform virtualization (e.g., ahypervisor layer), or the like). In some cases, an IaaS provider mayalso supply a variety of services to accompany those infrastructurecomponents (e.g., billing, monitoring, logging, security, load balancingand clustering, etc.). Thus, as these services may be policy-driven,IaaS users may be able to implement policies to drive load balancing tomaintain application availability and performance.

In some instances, IaaS customers may access resources and servicesthrough a wide area network (WAN), such as the Internet, and can use thecloud provider's services to install the remaining elements of anapplication stack. For example, the user can log in to the IaaS platformto create virtual machines (VMs), install operating systems (OSs) oneach VM, deploy middleware such as databases, create storage buckets forworkloads and backups, and even install enterprise software into thatVM. Customers can then use the provider's services to perform variousfunctions, including balancing network traffic, troubleshootingapplication issues, monitoring performance, managing disaster recovery,etc.

In most cases, a cloud computing model will require the participation ofa cloud provider. The cloud provider may, but need not be, a third-partyservice that specializes in providing (e.g., offering, renting, selling)IaaS. An entity might also opt to deploy a private cloud, becoming itsown provider of infrastructure services.

In some examples, IaaS deployment is the process of putting a newapplication, or a new version of an application, onto a preparedapplication server or the like. It may also include the process ofpreparing the server (e.g., installing libraries, daemons, etc.). Thisis often managed by the cloud provider, below the hypervisor layer(e.g., the servers, storage, network hardware, and virtualization).Thus, the customer may be responsible for handling (OS), middleware,and/or application deployment (e.g., on self-service virtual machines(e.g., that can be spun up on demand) or the like.

In some examples, IaaS provisioning may refer to acquiring computers orvirtual hosts for use, and even installing needed libraries or serviceson them. In most cases, deployment does not include provisioning, andthe provisioning may need to be performed first.

In some cases, there are two different problems for IaaS provisioning.First, there is the initial challenge of provisioning the initial set ofinfrastructure before anything is running. Second, there is thechallenge of evolving the existing infrastructure (e.g., adding newservices, changing services, removing services, etc.) once everythinghas been provisioned. In some cases, these two challenges may beaddressed by enabling the configuration of the infrastructure to bedefined declaratively. In other words, the infrastructure (e.g., whatcomponents are needed and how they interact) can be defined by one ormore configuration files. Thus, the overall topology of theinfrastructure (e.g., what resources depend on which, and how they eachwork together) can be described declaratively. In some instances, oncethe topology is defined, a workflow can be generated that creates and/ormanages the different components described in the configuration files.

In some examples, an infrastructure may have many interconnectedelements. For example, there may be one or more virtual private clouds(VPCs) (e.g., a potentially on-demand pool of configurable and/or sharedcomputing resources), also known as a core network. In some examples,there may also be one or more security group rules provisioned to definehow the security of the network will be set up and one or more virtualmachines (VMs). Other infrastructure elements may also be provisioned,such as a load balancer, a database, or the like. As more and moreinfrastructure elements are desired and/or added, the infrastructure mayincrementally evolve.

In some instances, continuous deployment techniques may be employed toenable deployment of infrastructure code across various virtualcomputing environments. Additionally, the described techniques canenable infrastructure management within these environments. In someexamples, service teams can write code that is desired to be deployed toone or more, but often many, different production environments (e.g.,across various different geographic locations, sometimes spanning theentire world). However, in some examples, the infrastructure on whichthe code will be deployed must first be set up. In some instances, theprovisioning can be done manually, a provisioning tool may be utilizedto provision the resources, and/or deployment tools may be utilized todeploy the code once the infrastructure is provisioned.

FIG. 10 is a block diagram 1000 illustrating an example pattern of anIaaS architecture, according to at least one embodiment. Serviceoperators 1002 can be communicatively coupled to a secure host tenancy1004 that can include a virtual cloud network (VCN) 1006 and a securehost subnet 1008. In some examples, the service operators 1002 may beusing one or more client computing devices, which may be portablehandheld devices (e.g., an iPhone®, cellular telephone, an iPad®,computing tablet, a personal digital assistant (PDA)) or wearabledevices (e.g., a Google Glass® head mounted display), running softwaresuch as Microsoft Windows Mobile®, and/or a variety of mobile operatingsystems such as iOS, Windows Phone, Android, BlackBerry 8, Palm OS, andthe like, and being Internet, e-mail, short message service (SMS),Blackberry®, or other communication protocol enabled. Alternatively, theclient computing devices can be general purpose personal computersincluding, by way of example, personal computers and/or laptop computersrunning various versions of Microsoft Windows®, Apple Macintosh®, and/orLinux operating systems. The client computing devices can be workstationcomputers running any of a variety of commercially-available UNIX® orUNIX-like operating systems, including without limitation the variety ofGNU/Linux operating systems, such as for example, Google Chrome OS.Alternatively, or in addition, client computing devices may be any otherelectronic device, such as a thin-client computer, an Internet-enabledgaming system (e.g., a Microsoft Xbox gaming console with or without aKinect® gesture input device), and/or a personal messaging device,capable of communicating over a network that can access the VCN 1006and/or the Internet.

The VCN 1006 can include a local peering gateway (LPG) 1010 that can becommunicatively coupled to a secure shell (SSH) VCN 1012 via an LPG 1010contained in the SSH VCN 1012. The SSH VCN 1012 can include an SSHsubnet 1014, and the SSH VCN 1012 can be communicatively coupled to acontrol plane VCN 1016 via the LPG 1010 contained in the control planeVCN 1016. Also, the SSH VCN 1012 can be communicatively coupled to adata plane VCN 1018 via an LPG 1010. The control plane VCN 1016 and thedata plane VCN 1018 can be contained in a service tenancy 1019 that canbe owned and/or operated by the IaaS provider.

The control plane VCN 1016 can include a control plane demilitarizedzone (DMZ) tier 1020 that acts as a perimeter network (e.g., portions ofa corporate network between the corporate intranet and externalnetworks). The DMZ-based servers may have restricted responsibilitiesand help keep security breaches contained. Additionally, the DMZ tier1020 can include one or more load balancer (LB) subnet(s) 1022, acontrol plane app tier 1024 that can include app subnet(s) 1026, acontrol plane data tier 1028 that can include database (DB) subnet(s)1030 (e.g., frontend DB subnet(s) and/or backend DB subnet(s)). The LBsubnet(s) 1022 contained in the control plane DMZ tier 1020 can becommunicatively coupled to the app subnet(s) 1026 contained in thecontrol plane app tier 1024 and an Internet gateway 1034 that can becontained in the control plane VCN 1016, and the app subnet(s) 1026 canbe communicatively coupled to the DB subnet(s) 1030 contained in thecontrol plane data tier 1028 and a service gateway 1036 and a networkaddress translation (NAT) gateway 1038. The control plane VCN 1016 caninclude the service gateway 1036 and the NAT gateway 1038.

The control plane VCN 1016 can include a data plane mirror app tier 1040that can include app subnet(s) 1026. The app subnet(s) 1026 contained inthe data plane mirror app tier 1040 can include a virtual networkinterface controller (VNIC) 1042 that can execute a compute instance1044. The compute instance 1044 can communicatively couple the appsubnet(s) 1026 of the data plane mirror app tier 1040 to app subnet(s)1026 that can be contained in a data plane app tier 1046.

The data plane VCN 1018 can include the data plane app tier 1046, a dataplane DMZ tier 1048, and a data plane data tier 1050. The data plane DMZtier 1048 can include LB subnet(s) 1022 that can be communicativelycoupled to the app subnet(s) 1026 of the data plane app tier 1046 andthe Internet gateway 1034 of the data plane VCN 1018. The app subnet(s)1026 can be communicatively coupled to the service gateway 1036 of thedata plane VCN 1018 and the NAT gateway 1038 of the data plane VCN 1018.The data plane data tier 1050 can also include the DB subnet(s) 1030that can be communicatively coupled to the app subnet(s) 1026 of thedata plane app tier 1046.

The Internet gateway 1034 of the control plane VCN 1016 and of the dataplane VCN 1018 can be communicatively coupled to a metadata managementservice 1052 that can be communicatively coupled to public Internet1054. Public Internet 1054 can be communicatively coupled to the NATgateway 1038 of the control plane VCN 1016 and of the data plane VCN1018. The service gateway 1036 of the control plane VCN 1016 and of thedata plane VCN 1018 can be communicatively couple to cloud services1056.

In some examples, the service gateway 1036 of the control plane VCN 1016or of the data plane VCN 1018 can make application programming interface(API) calls to cloud services 1056 without going through public Internet1054. The API calls to cloud services 1056 from the service gateway 1036can be one-way: the service gateway 1036 can make API calls to cloudservices 1056, and cloud services 1056 can send requested data to theservice gateway 1036. But, cloud services 1056 may not initiate APIcalls to the service gateway 1036.

In some examples, the secure host tenancy 1004 can be directly connectedto the service tenancy 1019, which may be otherwise isolated. The securehost subnet 1008 can communicate with the SSH subnet 1014 through an LPG1010 that may enable two-way communication over an otherwise isolatedsystem. Connecting the secure host subnet 1008 to the SSH subnet 1014may give the secure host subnet 1008 access to other entities within theservice tenancy 1019.

The control plane VCN 1016 may allow users of the service tenancy 1019to set up or otherwise provision desired resources. Desired resourcesprovisioned in the control plane VCN 1016 may be deployed or otherwiseused in the data plane VCN 1018. In some examples, the control plane VCN1016 can be isolated from the data plane VCN 1018, and the data planemirror app tier 1040 of the control plane VCN 1016 can communicate withthe data plane app tier 1046 of the data plane VCN 1018 via VNICs 1042that can be contained in the data plane mirror app tier 1040 and thedata plane app tier 1046.

In some examples, users of the system, or customers, can make requests,for example create, read, update, or delete (CRUD) operations, throughpublic Internet 1054 that can communicate the requests to the metadatamanagement service 1052. The metadata management service 1052 cancommunicate the request to the control plane VCN 1016 through theInternet gateway 1034. The request can be received by the LB subnet(s)1022 contained in the control plane DMZ tier 1020. The LB subnet(s) 1022may determine that the request is valid, and in response to thisdetermination, the LB subnet(s) 1022 can transmit the request to appsubnet(s) 1026 contained in the control plane app tier 1024. If therequest is validated and requires a call to public Internet 1054, thecall to public Internet 1054 may be transmitted to the NAT gateway 1038that can make the call to public Internet 1054. Memory that may bedesired to be stored by the request can be stored in the DB subnet(s)1030.

In some examples, the data plane mirror app tier 1040 can facilitatedirect communication between the control plane VCN 1016 and the dataplane VCN 1018. For example, changes, updates, or other suitablemodifications to configuration may be desired to be applied to theresources contained in the data plane VCN 1018. Via a VNIC 1042, thecontrol plane VCN 1016 can directly communicate with, and can therebyexecute the changes, updates, or other suitable modifications toconfiguration to, resources contained in the data plane VCN 1018.

In some embodiments, the control plane VCN 1016 and the data plane VCN1018 can be contained in the service tenancy 1019. In this case, theuser, or the customer, of the system may not own or operate either thecontrol plane VCN 1016 or the data plane VCN 1018. Instead, the IaaSprovider may own or operate the control plane VCN 1016 and the dataplane VCN 1018, both of which may be contained in the service tenancy1019. This embodiment can enable isolation of networks that may preventusers or customers from interacting with other users', or othercustomers', resources. Also, this embodiment may allow users orcustomers of the system to store databases privately without needing torely on public Internet 1054, which may not have a desired level ofsecurity, for storage.

In other embodiments, the LB subnet(s) 1022 contained in the controlplane VCN 1016 can be configured to receive a signal from the servicegateway 1036. In this embodiment, the control plane VCN 1016 and thedata plane VCN 1018 may be configured to be called by a customer of theIaaS provider without calling public Internet 1054. Customers of theIaaS provider may desire this embodiment since database(s) that thecustomers use may be controlled by the IaaS provider and may be storedon the service tenancy 1019, which may be isolated from public Internet1054.

FIG. 11 is a block diagram 1100 illustrating another example pattern ofan IaaS architecture, according to at least one embodiment. Serviceoperators 1102 (e.g. service operators 1002 of FIG. 10) can becommunicatively coupled to a secure host tenancy 1104 (e.g. the securehost tenancy 1004 of FIG. 10) that can include a virtual cloud network(VCN) 1106 (e.g. the VCN 1006 of FIG. 10) and a secure host subnet 1108(e.g. the secure host subnet 1008 of FIG. 10). The VCN 1106 can includea local peering gateway (LPG) 1110 (e.g. the LPG 1010 of FIG. 10) thatcan be communicatively coupled to a secure shell (SSH) VCN 1112 (e.g.the SSH VCN 1012 of FIG. 10) via an LPG 1010 contained in the SSH VCN1112. The SSH VCN 1112 can include an SSH subnet 1114 (e.g. the SSHsubnet 1014 of FIG. 10), and the SSH VCN 1112 can be communicativelycoupled to a control plane VCN 1116 (e.g. the control plane VCN 1016 ofFIG. 10) via an LPG 1110 contained in the control plane VCN 1116. Thecontrol plane VCN 1116 can be contained in a service tenancy 1119 (e.g.the service tenancy 1019 of FIG. 10), and the data plane VCN 1118 (e.g.the data plane VCN 1018 of FIG. 10) can be contained in a customertenancy 1121 that may be owned or operated by users, or customers, ofthe system.

The control plane VCN 1116 can include a control plane DMZ tier 1120(e.g. the control plane DMZ tier 1020 of FIG. 10) that can include LBsubnet(s) 1122 (e.g. LB subnet(s) 1022 of FIG. 10), a control plane apptier 1124 (e.g. the control plane app tier 1024 of FIG. 10) that caninclude app subnet(s) 1126 (e.g. app subnet(s) 1026 of FIG. 10), acontrol plane data tier 1128 (e.g. the control plane data tier 1028 ofFIG. 10) that can include database (DB) subnet(s) 1130 (e.g. similar toDB subnet(s) 1030 of FIG. 10). The LB subnet(s) 1122 contained in thecontrol plane DMZ tier 1120 can be communicatively coupled to the appsubnet(s) 1126 contained in the control plane app tier 1124 and anInternet gateway 1134 (e.g. the Internet gateway 1034 of FIG. 10) thatcan be contained in the control plane VCN 1116, and the app subnet(s)1126 can be communicatively coupled to the DB subnet(s) 1130 containedin the control plane data tier 1128 and a service gateway 1136 (e.g. theservice gateway of FIG. 10) and a network address translation (NAT)gateway 1138 (e.g. the NAT gateway 1038 of FIG. 10). The control planeVCN 1116 can include the service gateway 1136 and the NAT gateway 1138.

The control plane VCN 1116 can include a data plane mirror app tier 1140(e.g. the data plane mirror app tier 1040 of FIG. 10) that can includeapp subnet(s) 1126. The app subnet(s) 1126 contained in the data planemirror app tier 1140 can include a virtual network interface controller(VNIC) 1142 (e.g. the VNIC of 1042) that can execute a compute instance1144 (e.g. similar to the compute instance 1044 of FIG. 10). The computeinstance 1144 can facilitate communication between the app subnet(s)1126 of the data plane mirror app tier 1140 and the app subnet(s) 1126that can be contained in a data plane app tier 1146 (e.g. the data planeapp tier 1046 of FIG. 10) via the VNIC 1142 contained in the data planemirror app tier 1140 and the VNIC 1142 contained in the data plane apptier 1146.

The Internet gateway 1134 contained in the control plane VCN 1116 can becommunicatively coupled to a metadata management service 1152 (e.g. themetadata management service 1052 of FIG. 10) that can be communicativelycoupled to public Internet 1154 (e.g. public Internet 1054 of FIG. 10).Public Internet 1154 can be communicatively coupled to the NAT gateway1138 contained in the control plane VCN 1116. The service gateway 1136contained in the control plane VCN 1116 can be communicatively couple tocloud services 1156 (e.g. cloud services 1056 of FIG. 10).

In some examples, the data plane VCN 1118 can be contained in thecustomer tenancy 1121. In this case, the IaaS provider may provide thecontrol plane VCN 1116 for each customer, and the IaaS provider may, foreach customer, set up a unique compute instance 1144 that is containedin the service tenancy 1119. Each compute instance 1144 may allowcommunication between the control plane VCN 1116, contained in theservice tenancy 1119, and the data plane VCN 1118 that is contained inthe customer tenancy 1121. The compute instance 1144 may allowresources, that are provisioned in the control plane VCN 1116 that iscontained in the service tenancy 1119, to be deployed or otherwise usedin the data plane VCN 1118 that is contained in the customer tenancy1121.

In other examples, the customer of the IaaS provider may have databasesthat live in the customer tenancy 1121. In this example, the controlplane VCN 1116 can include the data plane mirror app tier 1140 that caninclude app subnet(s) 1126. The data plane mirror app tier 1140 canreside in the data plane VCN 1118, but the data plane mirror app tier1140 may not live in the data plane VCN 1118. That is, the data planemirror app tier 1140 may have access to the customer tenancy 1121, butthe data plane mirror app tier 1140 may not exist in the data plane VCN1118 or be owned or operated by the customer of the IaaS provider. Thedata plane mirror app tier 1140 may be configured to make calls to thedata plane VCN 1118 but may not be configured to make calls to anyentity contained in the control plane VCN 1116. The customer may desireto deploy or otherwise use resources in the data plane VCN 1118 that areprovisioned in the control plane VCN 1116, and the data plane mirror apptier 1140 can facilitate the desired deployment, or other usage ofresources, of the customer.

In some embodiments, the customer of the IaaS provider can apply filtersto the data plane VCN 1118. In this embodiment, the customer candetermine what the data plane VCN 1118 can access, and the customer mayrestrict access to public Internet 1154 from the data plane VCN 1118.The IaaS provider may not be able to apply filters or otherwise controlaccess of the data plane VCN 1118 to any outside networks or databases.Applying filters and controls by the customer onto the data plane VCN1118, contained in the customer tenancy 1121, can help isolate the dataplane VCN 1118 from other customers and from public Internet 1154.

In some embodiments, cloud services 1156 can be called by the servicegateway 1136 to access services that may not exist on public Internet1154, on the control plane VCN 1116, or on the data plane VCN 1118. Theconnection between cloud services 1156 and the control plane VCN 1116 orthe data plane VCN 1118 may not be live or continuous. Cloud services1156 may exist on a different network owned or operated by the IaaSprovider. Cloud services 1156 may be configured to receive calls fromthe service gateway 1136 and may be configured to not receive calls frompublic Internet 1154. Some cloud services 1156 may be isolated fromother cloud services 1156, and the control plane VCN 1116 may beisolated from cloud services 1156 that may not be in the same region asthe control plane VCN 1116. For example, the control plane VCN 1116 maybe located in “Region 1,” and cloud service “Deployment 10,” may belocated in Region 1 and in “Region 2.” If a call to Deployment 10 ismade by the service gateway 1136 contained in the control plane VCN 1116located in Region 1, the call may be transmitted to Deployment 10 inRegion 1. In this example, the control plane VCN 1116, or Deployment 10in Region 1, may not be communicatively coupled to, or otherwise incommunication with, Deployment 10 in Region 2.

FIG. 12 is a block diagram 1200 illustrating another example pattern ofan IaaS architecture, according to at least one embodiment. Serviceoperators 1202 (e.g. service operators 1002 of FIG. 10) can becommunicatively coupled to a secure host tenancy 1204 (e.g. the securehost tenancy 1004 of FIG. 10) that can include a virtual cloud network(VCN) 1206 (e.g. the VCN 1006 of FIG. 10) and a secure host subnet 1208(e.g. the secure host subnet 1008 of FIG. 10). The VCN 1206 can includean LPG 1210 (e.g. the LPG 1010 of FIG. 10) that can be communicativelycoupled to an SSH VCN 1212 (e.g. the SSH VCN 1012 of FIG. 10) via an LPG1210 contained in the SSH VCN 1212. The SSH VCN 1212 can include an SSHsubnet 1214 (e.g. the SSH subnet 1014 of FIG. 10), and the SSH VCN 1212can be communicatively coupled to a control plane VCN 1216 (e.g. thecontrol plane VCN 1016 of FIG. 10) via an LPG 1210 contained in thecontrol plane VCN 1216 and to a data plane VCN 1218 (e.g. the data plane1018 of FIG. 10) via an LPG 1210 contained in the data plane VCN 1218.The control plane VCN 1216 and the data plane VCN 1218 can be containedin a service tenancy 1219 (e.g. the service tenancy 1019 of FIG. 10).

The control plane VCN 1216 can include a control plane DMZ tier 1220(e.g. the control plane DMZ tier 1020 of FIG. 10) that can include loadbalancer (LB) subnet(s) 1222 (e.g. LB subnet(s) 1022 of FIG. 10), acontrol plane app tier 1224 (e.g. the control plane app tier 1024 ofFIG. 10) that can include app subnet(s) 1226 (e.g. similar to appsubnet(s) 1026 of FIG. 10), a control plane data tier 1228 (e.g. thecontrol plane data tier 1028 of FIG. 10) that can include DB subnet(s)1230. The LB subnet(s) 1222 contained in the control plane DMZ tier 1220can be communicatively coupled to the app subnet(s) 1226 contained inthe control plane app tier 1224 and to an Internet gateway 1234 (e.g.the Internet gateway 1034 of FIG. 10) that can be contained in thecontrol plane VCN 1216, and the app subnet(s) 1226 can becommunicatively coupled to the DB subnet(s) 1230 contained in thecontrol plane data tier 1228 and to a service gateway 1236 (e.g. theservice gateway of FIG. 10) and a network address translation (NAT)gateway 1238 (e.g. the NAT gateway 1038 of FIG. 10). The control planeVCN 1216 can include the service gateway 1236 and the NAT gateway 1238.

The data plane VCN 1218 can include a data plane app tier 1246 (e.g. thedata plane app tier 1046 of FIG. 10), a data plane DMZ tier 1248 (e.g.the data plane DMZ tier 1048 of FIG. 10), and a data plane data tier1250 (e.g. the data plane data tier 1050 of FIG. 10). The data plane DMZtier 1248 can include LB subnet(s) 1222 that can be communicativelycoupled to trusted app subnet(s) 1260 and untrusted app subnet(s) 1262of the data plane app tier 1246 and the Internet gateway 1234 containedin the data plane VCN 1218. The trusted app subnet(s) 1260 can becommunicatively coupled to the service gateway 1236 contained in thedata plane VCN 1218, the NAT gateway 1238 contained in the data planeVCN 1218, and DB subnet(s) 1230 contained in the data plane data tier1250. The untrusted app subnet(s) 1262 can be communicatively coupled tothe service gateway 1236 contained in the data plane VCN 1218 and DBsubnet(s) 1230 contained in the data plane data tier 1250. The dataplane data tier 1250 can include DB subnet(s) 1230 that can becommunicatively coupled to the service gateway 1236 contained in thedata plane VCN 1218.

The untrusted app subnet(s) 1262 can include one or more primary VNICs1264(1)-(N) that can be communicatively coupled to tenant virtualmachines (VMs) 1266(1)-(N). Each tenant VM 1266(1)-(N) can becommunicatively coupled to a respective app subnet 1267(1)-(N) that canbe contained in respective container egress VCNs 1268(1)-(N) that can becontained in respective customer tenancies 1270(1)-(N). Respectivesecondary VNICs 1272(1)-(N) can facilitate communication between theuntrusted app subnet(s) 1262 contained in the data plane VCN 1218 andthe app subnet contained in the container egress VCNs 1268(1)-(N). Eachcontainer egress VCNs 1268(1)-(N) can include a NAT gateway 1238 thatcan be communicatively coupled to public Internet 1254 (e.g. publicInternet 1054 of FIG. 10).

The Internet gateway 1234 contained in the control plane VCN 1216 andcontained in the data plane VCN 1218 can be communicatively coupled to ametadata management service 1252 (e.g. the metadata management system1052 of FIG. 10) that can be communicatively coupled to public Internet1254. Public Internet 1254 can be communicatively coupled to the NATgateway 1238 contained in the control plane VCN 1216 and contained inthe data plane VCN 1218. The service gateway 1236 contained in thecontrol plane VCN 1216 and contained in the data plane VCN 1218 can becommunicatively couple to cloud services 1256.

In some embodiments, the data plane VCN 1218 can be integrated withcustomer tenancies 1270. This integration can be useful or desirable forcustomers of the IaaS provider in some cases such as a case that maydesire support when executing code. The customer may provide code to runthat may be destructive, may communicate with other customer resources,or may otherwise cause undesirable effects. In response to this, theIaaS provider may determine whether to run code given to the IaaSprovider by the customer.

In some examples, the customer of the IaaS provider may grant temporarynetwork access to the IaaS provider and request a function to beattached to the data plane tier app 1246. Code to run the function maybe executed in the VMs 1266(1)-(N), and the code may not be configuredto run anywhere else on the data plane VCN 1218. Each VM 1266(1)-(N) maybe connected to one customer tenancy 1270. Respective containers1271(1)-(N) contained in the VMs 1266(1)-(N) may be configured to runthe code. In this case, there can be a dual isolation (e.g., thecontainers 1271(1)-(N) running code, where the containers 1271(1)-(N)may be contained in at least the VM 1266(1)-(N) that are contained inthe untrusted app subnet(s) 1262), which may help prevent incorrect orotherwise undesirable code from damaging the network of the IaaSprovider or from damaging a network of a different customer. Thecontainers 1271(1)-(N) may be communicatively coupled to the customertenancy 1270 and may be configured to transmit or receive data from thecustomer tenancy 1270. The containers 1271(1)-(N) may not be configuredto transmit or receive data from any other entity in the data plane VCN1218. Upon completion of running the code, the IaaS provider may kill orotherwise dispose of the containers 1271(1)-(N).

In some embodiments, the trusted app subnet(s) 1260 may run code thatmay be owned or operated by the IaaS provider. In this embodiment, thetrusted app subnet(s) 1260 may be communicatively coupled to the DBsubnet(s) 1230 and be configured to execute CRUD operations in the DBsubnet(s) 1230. The untrusted app subnet(s) 1262 may be communicativelycoupled to the DB subnet(s) 1230, but in this embodiment, the untrustedapp subnet(s) may be configured to execute read operations in the DBsubnet(s) 1230. The containers 1271(1)-(N) that can be contained in theVM 1266(1)-(N) of each customer and that may run code from the customermay not be communicatively coupled with the DB subnet(s) 1230.

In other embodiments, the control plane VCN 1216 and the data plane VCN1218 may not be directly communicatively coupled. In this embodiment,there may be no direct communication between the control plane VCN 1216and the data plane VCN 1218. However, communication can occur indirectlythrough at least one method. An LPG 1210 may be established by the IaaSprovider that can facilitate communication between the control plane VCN1216 and the data plane VCN 1218. In another example, the control planeVCN 1216 or the data plane VCN 1218 can make a call to cloud services1256 via the service gateway 1236. For example, a call to cloud services1256 from the control plane VCN 1216 can include a request for a servicethat can communicate with the data plane VCN 1218.

FIG. 13 is a block diagram 1300 illustrating another example pattern ofan IaaS architecture, according to at least one embodiment. Serviceoperators 1302 (e.g. service operators 1002 of FIG. 10) can becommunicatively coupled to a secure host tenancy 1304 (e.g. the securehost tenancy 1004 of FIG. 10) that can include a virtual cloud network(VCN) 1306 (e.g. the VCN 1006 of FIG. 10) and a secure host subnet 1308(e.g. the secure host subnet 1008 of FIG. 10). The VCN 1306 can includean LPG 1310 (e.g. the LPG 1010 of FIG. 10) that can be communicativelycoupled to an SSH VCN 1312 (e.g. the SSH VCN 1012 of FIG. 10) via an LPG1310 contained in the SSH VCN 1312. The SSH VCN 1312 can include an SSHsubnet 1314 (e.g. the SSH subnet 1014 of FIG. 10), and the SSH VCN 1312can be communicatively coupled to a control plane VCN 1316 (e.g. thecontrol plane VCN 1016 of FIG. 10) via an LPG 1310 contained in thecontrol plane VCN 1316 and to a data plane VCN 1318 (e.g. the data plane1018 of FIG. 10) via an LPG 1310 contained in the data plane VCN 1318.The control plane VCN 1316 and the data plane VCN 1318 can be containedin a service tenancy 1319 (e.g. the service tenancy 1019 of FIG. 10).

The control plane VCN 1316 can include a control plane DMZ tier 1320(e.g. the control plane DMZ tier 1020 of FIG. 10) that can include LBsubnet(s) 1322 (e.g. LB subnet(s) 1022 of FIG. 10), a control plane apptier 1324 (e.g. the control plane app tier 1024 of FIG. 10) that caninclude app subnet(s) 1326 (e.g. app subnet(s) 1026 of FIG. 10), acontrol plane data tier 1328 (e.g. the control plane data tier 1028 ofFIG. 10) that can include DB subnet(s) 1330 (e.g. DB subnet(s) 1230 ofFIG. 12). The LB subnet(s) 1322 contained in the control plane DMZ tier1320 can be communicatively coupled to the app subnet(s) 1326 containedin the control plane app tier 1324 and to an Internet gateway 1334 (e.g.the Internet gateway 1034 of FIG. 10) that can be contained in thecontrol plane VCN 1316, and the app subnet(s) 1326 can becommunicatively coupled to the DB subnet(s) 1330 contained in thecontrol plane data tier 1328 and to a service gateway 1336 (e.g. theservice gateway of FIG. 10) and a network address translation (NAT)gateway 1338 (e.g. the NAT gateway 1038 of FIG. 10). The control planeVCN 1316 can include the service gateway 1336 and the NAT gateway 1338.

The data plane VCN 1318 can include a data plane app tier 1346 (e.g. thedata plane app tier 1046 of FIG. 10), a data plane DMZ tier 1348 (e.g.the data plane DMZ tier 1048 of FIG. 10), and a data plane data tier1350 (e.g. the data plane data tier 1050 of FIG. 10). The data plane DMZtier 1348 can include LB subnet(s) 1322 that can be communicativelycoupled to trusted app subnet(s) 1360 (e.g. trusted app subnet(s) 1260of FIG. 12) and untrusted app subnet(s) 1362 (e.g. untrusted appsubnet(s) 1262 of FIG. 12) of the data plane app tier 1346 and theInternet gateway 1334 contained in the data plane VCN 1318. The trustedapp subnet(s) 1360 can be communicatively coupled to the service gateway1336 contained in the data plane VCN 1318, the NAT gateway 1338contained in the data plane VCN 1318, and DB subnet(s) 1330 contained inthe data plane data tier 1350. The untrusted app subnet(s) 1362 can becommunicatively coupled to the service gateway 1336 contained in thedata plane VCN 1318 and DB subnet(s) 1330 contained in the data planedata tier 1350. The data plane data tier 1350 can include DB subnet(s)1330 that can be communicatively coupled to the service gateway 1336contained in the data plane VCN 1318.

The untrusted app subnet(s) 1362 can include primary VNICs 1364(1)-(N)that can be communicatively coupled to tenant virtual machines (VMs)1366(1)-(N) residing within the untrusted app subnet(s) 1362. Eachtenant VM 1366(1)-(N) can run code in a respective container1367(1)-(N), and be communicatively coupled to an app subnet 1326 thatcan be contained in a data plane app tier 1346 that can be contained ina container egress VCN 1368. Respective secondary VNICs 1372(1)-(N) canfacilitate communication between the untrusted app subnet(s) 1362contained in the data plane VCN 1318 and the app subnet contained in thecontainer egress VCN 1368. The container egress VCN can include a NATgateway 1338 that can be communicatively coupled to public Internet 1354(e.g. public Internet 1054 of FIG. 10).

The Internet gateway 1334 contained in the control plane VCN 1316 andcontained in the data plane VCN 1318 can be communicatively coupled to ametadata management service 1352 (e.g. the metadata management system1052 of FIG. 10) that can be communicatively coupled to public Internet1354. Public Internet 1354 can be communicatively coupled to the NATgateway 1338 contained in the control plane VCN 1316 and contained inthe data plane VCN 1318. The service gateway 1336 contained in thecontrol plane VCN 1316 and contained in the data plane VCN 1318 can becommunicatively couple to cloud services 1356.

In some examples, the pattern illustrated by the architecture of blockdiagram 1300 of FIG. 13 may be considered an exception to the patternillustrated by the architecture of block diagram 1200 of FIG. 12 and maybe desirable for a customer of the IaaS provider if the IaaS providercannot directly communicate with the customer (e.g., a disconnectedregion). The respective containers 1367(1)-(N) that are contained in theVMs 1366(1)-(N) for each customer can be accessed in real-time by thecustomer. The containers 1367(1)-(N) may be configured to make calls torespective secondary VNICs 1372(1)-(N) contained in app subnet(s) 1326of the data plane app tier 1346 that can be contained in the containeregress VCN 1368. The secondary VNICs 1372(1)-(N) can transmit the callsto the NAT gateway 1338 that may transmit the calls to public Internet1354. In this example, the containers 1367(1)-(N) that can be accessedin real-time by the customer can be isolated from the control plane VCN1316 and can be isolated from other entities contained in the data planeVCN 1318. The containers 1367(1)-(N) may also be isolated from resourcesfrom other customers.

In other examples, the customer can use the containers 1367(1)-(N) tocall cloud services 1356. In this example, the customer may run code inthe containers 1367(1)-(N) that requests a service from cloud services1356. The containers 1367(1)-(N) can transmit this request to thesecondary VNICs 1372(1)-(N) that can transmit the request to the NATgateway that can transmit the request to public Internet 1354. PublicInternet 1354 can transmit the request to LB subnet(s) 1322 contained inthe control plane VCN 1316 via the Internet gateway 1334. In response todetermining the request is valid, the LB subnet(s) can transmit therequest to app subnet(s) 1326 that can transmit the request to cloudservices 1356 via the service gateway 1336.

It should be appreciated that IaaS architectures 1000, 1100, 1200, 1300depicted in the figures may have other components than those depicted.Further, the embodiments shown in the figures are only some examples ofa cloud infrastructure system that may incorporate an embodiment of thedisclosure. In some other embodiments, the IaaS systems may have more orfewer components than shown in the figures, may combine two or morecomponents, or may have a different configuration or arrangement ofcomponents.

In certain embodiments, the IaaS systems described herein may include asuite of applications, middleware, and database service offerings thatare delivered to a customer in a self-service, subscription-based,elastically scalable, reliable, highly available, and secure manner. Anexample of such an IaaS system is the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI)provided by the present assignee.

FIG. 14 illustrates an example computer system 1400, in which variousembodiments may be implemented. The system 1400 may be used to implementany of the computer systems described above. As shown in the figure,computer system 1400 includes a processing unit 1404 that communicateswith a number of peripheral subsystems via a bus subsystem 1402. Theseperipheral subsystems may include a processing acceleration unit 1406,an I/O subsystem 1408, a storage subsystem 1418 and a communicationssubsystem 1424. Storage subsystem 1418 includes tangiblecomputer-readable storage media 1422 and a system memory 1410.

Bus subsystem 1402 provides a mechanism for letting the variouscomponents and subsystems of computer system 1400 communicate with eachother as intended. Although bus subsystem 1402 is shown schematically asa single bus, alternative embodiments of the bus subsystem may utilizemultiple buses. Bus subsystem 1402 may be any of several types of busstructures including a memory bus or memory controller, a peripheralbus, and a local bus using any of a variety of bus architectures. Forexample, such architectures may include an Industry StandardArchitecture (ISA) bus, Micro Channel Architecture (MCA) bus, EnhancedISA (EISA) bus, Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) localbus, and Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) bus, which can beimplemented as a Mezzanine bus manufactured to the IEEE P1386.1standard.

Processing unit 1404, which can be implemented as one or more integratedcircuits (e.g., a conventional microprocessor or microcontroller),controls the operation of computer system 1400. One or more processorsmay be included in processing unit 1404. These processors may includesingle core or multicore processors. In certain embodiments, processingunit 1404 may be implemented as one or more independent processing units1432 and/or 1434 with single or multicore processors included in eachprocessing unit. In other embodiments, processing unit 1404 may also beimplemented as a quad-core processing unit formed by integrating twodual-core processors into a single chip.

In various embodiments, processing unit 1404 can execute a variety ofprograms in response to program code and can maintain multipleconcurrently executing programs or processes. At any given time, some orall of the program code to be executed can be resident in processor(s)1404 and/or in storage subsystem 1418. Through suitable programming,processor(s) 1404 can provide various functionalities described above.Computer system 1400 may additionally include a processing accelerationunit 1406, which can include a digital signal processor (DSP), aspecial-purpose processor, and/or the like.

I/O subsystem 1408 may include user interface input devices and userinterface output devices. User interface input devices may include akeyboard, pointing devices such as a mouse or trackball, a touchpad ortouch screen incorporated into a display, a scroll wheel, a click wheel,a dial, a button, a switch, a keypad, audio input devices with voicecommand recognition systems, microphones, and other types of inputdevices. User interface input devices may include, for example, motionsensing and/or gesture recognition devices such as the Microsoft Kinect®motion sensor that enables users to control and interact with an inputdevice, such as the Microsoft Xbox® 360 game controller, through anatural user interface using gestures and spoken commands. Userinterface input devices may also include eye gesture recognition devicessuch as the Google Glass® blink detector that detects eye activity(e.g., ‘blinking’ while taking pictures and/or making a menu selection)from users and transforms the eye gestures as input into an input device(e.g., Google Glass®). Additionally, user interface input devices mayinclude voice recognition sensing devices that enable users to interactwith voice recognition systems (e.g., Siri® navigator), through voicecommands.

User interface input devices may also include, without limitation, threedimensional (3D) mice, joysticks or pointing sticks, gamepads andgraphic tablets, and audio/visual devices such as speakers, digitalcameras, digital camcorders, portable media players, webcams, imagescanners, fingerprint scanners, barcode reader 3D scanners, 3D printers,laser rangefinders, and eye gaze tracking devices. Additionally, userinterface input devices may include, for example, medical imaging inputdevices such as computed tomography, magnetic resonance imaging,position emission tomography, medical ultrasonography devices. Userinterface input devices may also include, for example, audio inputdevices such as MIDI keyboards, digital musical instruments and thelike.

User interface output devices may include a display subsystem, indicatorlights, or non-visual displays such as audio output devices, etc. Thedisplay subsystem may be a cathode ray tube (CRT), a flat-panel device,such as that using a liquid crystal display (LCD) or plasma display, aprojection device, a touch screen, and the like. In general, use of theterm “output device” is intended to include all possible types ofdevices and mechanisms for outputting information from computer system1400 to a user or other computer. For example, user interface outputdevices may include, without limitation, a variety of display devicesthat visually convey text, graphics and audio/video information such asmonitors, printers, speakers, headphones, automotive navigation systems,plotters, voice output devices, and modems.

Computer system 1400 may comprise a storage subsystem 1418 thatcomprises software elements, shown as being currently located within asystem memory 1410. System memory 1410 may store program instructionsthat are loadable and executable on processing unit 1404, as well asdata generated during the execution of these programs.

Depending on the configuration and type of computer system 1400, systemmemory 1410 may be volatile (such as random access memory (RAM)) and/ornon-volatile (such as read-only memory (ROM), flash memory, etc.) TheRAM typically contains data and/or program modules that are immediatelyaccessible to and/or presently being operated and executed by processingunit 1404. In some implementations, system memory 1410 may includemultiple different types of memory, such as static random access memory(SRAM) or dynamic random access memory (DRAM). In some implementations,a basic input/output system (BIOS), containing the basic routines thathelp to transfer information between elements within computer system1400, such as during start-up, may typically be stored in the ROM. Byway of example, and not limitation, system memory 1410 also illustratesapplication programs 1412, which may include client applications, Webbrowsers, mid-tier applications, relational database management systems(RDBMS), etc., program data 1414, and an operating system 1416. By wayof example, operating system 1416 may include various versions ofMicrosoft Windows®, Apple Macintosh®, and/or Linux operating systems, avariety of commercially-available UNIX® or UNIX-like operating systems(including without limitation the variety of GNU/Linux operatingsystems, the Google Chrome® OS, and the like) and/or mobile operatingsystems such as iOS, Windows® Phone, Android® OS, BlackBerry® 14 OS, andPalm® OS operating systems.

Storage subsystem 1418 may also provide a tangible computer-readablestorage medium for storing the basic programming and data constructsthat provide the functionality of some embodiments. Software (programs,code modules, instructions) that when executed by a processor providethe functionality described above may be stored in storage subsystem1418. These software modules or instructions may be executed byprocessing unit 1404. Storage subsystem 1418 may also provide arepository for storing data used in accordance with the presentdisclosure.

Storage subsystem 1400 may also include a computer-readable storagemedia reader 1420 that can further be connected to computer-readablestorage media 1422. Together and, optionally, in combination with systemmemory 1410, computer-readable storage media 1422 may comprehensivelyrepresent remote, local, fixed, and/or removable storage devices plusstorage media for temporarily and/or more permanently containing,storing, transmitting, and retrieving computer-readable information.

Computer-readable storage media 1422 containing code, or portions ofcode, can also include any appropriate media known or used in the art,including storage media and communication media, such as but not limitedto, volatile and non-volatile, removable and non-removable mediaimplemented in any method or technology for storage and/or transmissionof information. This can include tangible computer-readable storagemedia such as RAM, ROM, electronically erasable programmable ROM(EEPROM), flash memory or other memory technology, CD-ROM, digitalversatile disk (DVD), or other optical storage, magnetic cassettes,magnetic tape, magnetic disk storage or other magnetic storage devices,or other tangible computer readable media. This can also includenontangible computer-readable media, such as data signals, datatransmissions, or any other medium which can be used to transmit thedesired information and which can be accessed by computing system 1400.

By way of example, computer-readable storage media 1422 may include ahard disk drive that reads from or writes to non-removable, nonvolatilemagnetic media, a magnetic disk drive that reads from or writes to aremovable, nonvolatile magnetic disk, and an optical disk drive thatreads from or writes to a removable, nonvolatile optical disk such as aCD ROM, DVD, and Blu-Ray® disk, or other optical media.Computer-readable storage media 1422 may include, but is not limited to,Zip® drives, flash memory cards, universal serial bus (USB) flashdrives, secure digital (SD) cards, DVD disks, digital video tape, andthe like. Computer-readable storage media 1422 may also include,solid-state drives (SSD) based on non-volatile memory such asflash-memory based SSDs, enterprise flash drives, solid state ROM, andthe like, SSDs based on volatile memory such as solid state RAM, dynamicRAM, static RAM, DRAM-based SSDs, magnetoresistive RAM (MRAM) SSDs, andhybrid SSDs that use a combination of DRAM and flash memory based SSDs.The disk drives and their associated computer-readable media may providenon-volatile storage of computer-readable instructions, data structures,program modules, and other data for computer system 1400.

Communications subsystem 1424 provides an interface to other computersystems and networks. Communications subsystem 1424 serves as aninterface for receiving data from and transmitting data to other systemsfrom computer system 1400. For example, communications subsystem 1424may enable computer system 1400 to connect to one or more devices viathe Internet. In some embodiments communications subsystem 1424 caninclude radio frequency (RF) transceiver components for accessingwireless voice and/or data networks (e.g., using cellular telephonetechnology, advanced data network technology, such as 3G, 4G or EDGE(enhanced data rates for global evolution), WiFi (IEEE 802.11 familystandards, or other mobile communication technologies, or anycombination thereof), global positioning system (GPS) receivercomponents, and/or other components. In some embodiments communicationssubsystem 1424 can provide wired network connectivity (e.g., Ethernet)in addition to or instead of a wireless interface.

In some embodiments, communications subsystem 1424 may also receiveinput communication in the form of structured and/or unstructured datafeeds 1426, event streams 1428, event updates 1430, and the like onbehalf of one or more users who may use computer system 1400.

By way of example, communications subsystem 1424 may be configured toreceive data feeds 1426 in real-time from users of social networksand/or other communication services such as Twitter® feeds, Facebook®updates, web feeds such as Rich Site Summary (RSS) feeds, and/orreal-time updates from one or more third party information sources.

Additionally, communications subsystem 1424 may also be configured toreceive data in the form of continuous data streams, which may includeevent streams 1428 of real-time events and/or event updates 1430, thatmay be continuous or unbounded in nature with no explicit end. Examplesof applications that generate continuous data may include, for example,sensor data applications, financial tickers, network performancemeasuring tools (e.g. network monitoring and traffic managementapplications), clickstream analysis tools, automobile trafficmonitoring, and the like.

Communications subsystem 1424 may also be configured to output thestructured and/or unstructured data feeds 1426, event streams 1428,event updates 1430, and the like to one or more databases that may be incommunication with one or more streaming data source computers coupledto computer system 1400.

Computer system 1400 can be one of various types, including a handheldportable device (e.g., an iPhone® cellular phone, an iPad® computingtablet, a PDA), a wearable device (e.g., a Google Glass® head mounteddisplay), a PC, a workstation, a mainframe, a kiosk, a server rack, orany other data processing system.

Due to the ever-changing nature of computers and networks, thedescription of computer system 1400 depicted in the figure is intendedonly as a specific example. Many other configurations having more orfewer components than the system depicted in the figure are possible.For example, customized hardware might also be used and/or particularelements might be implemented in hardware, firmware, software (includingapplets), or a combination. Further, connection to other computingdevices, such as network input/output devices, may be employed. Based onthe disclosure and teachings provided herein, a person of ordinary skillin the art will appreciate other ways and/or methods to implement thevarious embodiments.

Although specific embodiments have been described, variousmodifications, alterations, alternative constructions, and equivalentsare also encompassed within the scope of the disclosure. Embodiments arenot restricted to operation within certain specific data processingenvironments, but are free to operate within a plurality of dataprocessing environments. Additionally, although embodiments have beendescribed using a particular series of transactions and steps, it shouldbe apparent to those skilled in the art that the scope of the presentdisclosure is not limited to the described series of transactions andsteps. Various features and aspects of the above-described embodimentsmay be used individually or jointly.

Further, while embodiments have been described using a particularcombination of hardware and software, it should be recognized that othercombinations of hardware and software are also within the scope of thepresent disclosure. Embodiments may be implemented only in hardware, oronly in software, or using combinations thereof. The various processesdescribed herein can be implemented on the same processor or differentprocessors in any combination. Accordingly, where components or modulesare described as being configured to perform certain operations, suchconfiguration can be accomplished, e.g., by designing electroniccircuits to perform the operation, by programming programmableelectronic circuits (such as microprocessors) to perform the operation,or any combination thereof. Processes can communicate using a variety oftechniques including but not limited to conventional techniques forinter process communication, and different pairs of processes may usedifferent techniques, or the same pair of processes may use differenttechniques at different times.

The specification and drawings are, accordingly, to be regarded in anillustrative rather than a restrictive sense. It will, however, beevident that additions, subtractions, deletions, and other modificationsand changes may be made thereunto without departing from the broaderspirit and scope as set forth in the claims. Thus, although specificdisclosure embodiments have been described, these are not intended to belimiting. Various modifications and equivalents are within the scope ofthe following claims.

The use of the terms “a” and “an” and “the” and similar referents in thecontext of describing the disclosed embodiments (especially in thecontext of the following claims) are to be construed to cover both thesingular and the plural, unless otherwise indicated herein or clearlycontradicted by context. The terms “comprising,” “having,” “including,”and “containing” are to be construed as open-ended terms (i.e., meaning“including, but not limited to,”) unless otherwise noted. The term“connected” is to be construed as partly or wholly contained within,attached to, or joined together, even if there is something intervening.Recitation of ranges of values herein are merely intended to serve as ashorthand method of referring individually to each separate valuefalling within the range, unless otherwise indicated herein and eachseparate value is incorporated into the specification as if it wereindividually recited herein. All methods described herein can beperformed in any suitable order unless otherwise indicated herein orotherwise clearly contradicted by context. The use of any and allexamples, or exemplary language (e.g., “such as”) provided herein, isintended merely to better illuminate embodiments and does not pose alimitation on the scope of the disclosure unless otherwise claimed. Nolanguage in the specification should be construed as indicating anynon-claimed element as essential to the practice of the disclosure.

Disjunctive language such as the phrase “at least one of X, Y, or Z,”unless specifically stated otherwise, is intended to be understoodwithin the context as used in general to present that an item, term,etc., may be either X, Y, or Z, or any combination thereof (e.g., X, Y,and/or Z). Thus, such disjunctive language is not generally intended to,and should not, imply that certain embodiments require at least one ofX, at least one of Y, or at least one of Z to each be present.

Preferred embodiments of this disclosure are described herein, includingthe best mode known for carrying out the disclosure. Variations of thosepreferred embodiments may become apparent to those of ordinary skill inthe art upon reading the foregoing description. Those of ordinary skillshould be able to employ such variations as appropriate and thedisclosure may be practiced otherwise than as specifically describedherein. Accordingly, this disclosure includes all modifications andequivalents of the subject matter recited in the claims appended heretoas permitted by applicable law. Moreover, any combination of theabove-described elements in all possible variations thereof isencompassed by the disclosure unless otherwise indicated herein.

All references, including publications, patent applications, andpatents, cited herein are hereby incorporated by reference to the sameextent as if each reference were individually and specifically indicatedto be incorporated by reference and were set forth in its entiretyherein.

In the foregoing specification, aspects of the disclosure are describedwith reference to specific embodiments thereof, but those skilled in theart will recognize that the disclosure is not limited thereto. Variousfeatures and aspects of the above-described disclosure may be usedindividually or jointly. Further, embodiments can be utilized in anynumber of environments and applications beyond those described hereinwithout departing from the broader spirit and scope of thespecification. The specification and drawings are, accordingly, to beregarded as illustrative rather than restrictive.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method comprising: monitoring, by a dataprocessing system, network traffic flow originating from networkinterfaces corresponding to containers that execute components of anapplication; detecting, by the data processing system, a new networkconnection or a change in an existing network connection within thenetwork traffic based on the monitoring of the network traffic flow; inresponse to detecting the new network connection or the change in theexisting network connection, recording, by the data processing system,details of the new network connection or the change in the existingnetwork connection, wherein the details include a network address of asource component and a network address of a destination component forthe new network connection or the change in the existing networkconnection; obtaining, by the data processing system, informationconcerning the components of the application, wherein the informationincludes the network address and metadata associated with each of thecomponents of the application; identifying, by the data processingsystem, metadata for the source component and the destination componentbased on a comparison of at least the network address of the sourcecomponent and the network address of the destination component to thenetwork address associated with each of the components of theapplication; generating, by the computer system, a network policy forthe source component or the destination component using at least themetadata for the source component and the destination component, whereinthe network policy comprises information representative of the newnetwork connection or the change in the existing network connection; andintegrating, by the computer system, the network policy for the sourcecomponent or the destination component into a deployment package for theapplication.
 2. The method of claim 1, wherein the details furtherinclude a time stamp for the new network connection or the change in theexisting network connection.
 3. The method of claim 2, wherein theinformation further includes any changes to arrangement of thecomponents and time of the changes, and the metadata comprises labelsassociated with each of the components of the application.
 4. The methodof claim 3, wherein the network policy for the source component or thedestination component is generated using at least the metadata for thesource component and the destination component, the time stamp for thenew network connection or the change in the existing network connection,and the time of the changes associated with the arrangement of thesource component or the destination component.
 5. The method of claim 1,further comprising identifying, by the data processing system, a subsetof components of the components of the application that are not involvedin the new network connection or the change in the existing networkconnection based on the comparison of at least the network address ofthe source component and the network address of the destinationcomponent to the network address associated with each of the componentsof the application, wherein the network policy for the source componentor the destination component is generated using at least the metadatafor the source component and the destination component and the subset ofcomponents of the components of the application that are not involved inthe new network connection or the change in the existing networkconnection.
 6. The method of claim 1, wherein the network policycomprises information indicating that the network policy is applicableto a defined version of the source component or the destinationcomponent.
 7. The method of claim 1, further comprising deploying, bythe data processing system, the deployment package to a computing nodein a computing environment of the data processing system.
 8. A systemcomprising: a processor; and a memory storing instructions that, whenexecuted by the processor, configure the system to: monitor networktraffic flow originating from network interfaces corresponding tocontainers that execute components of an application; detect a newnetwork connection or a change in an existing network connection withinthe network traffic based on the monitoring of the network traffic flow;in response to detecting the new network connection or the change in theexisting network connection, record details of the new networkconnection or the change in the existing network connection, wherein thedetails include a network address of a source component and a networkaddress of a destination component for the new network connection or thechange in the existing network connection; obtain information concerningthe components of the application, wherein the information includes thenetwork address and metadata associated with each of the components ofthe application; identify metadata for the source component and thedestination component based on a comparison of at least the networkaddress of the source component and the network address of thedestination component to the network address associated with each of thecomponents of the application; generate a network policy for the sourcecomponent or the destination component using at least the metadata forthe source component and the destination component, wherein the networkpolicy comprises information representative of the new networkconnection or the change in the existing network connection; andintegrate the network policy for the source component or the destinationcomponent into a deployment package for the application.
 9. The systemof claim 8, wherein the details further include a time stamp for the newnetwork connection or the change in the existing network connection. 10.The system of claim 9, wherein the information further includes anychanges to arrangement of the components and time of the changes, andthe metadata comprises labels associated with each of the components ofthe application.
 11. The system of claim 10, wherein the network policyfor the source component or the destination component is generated usingat least the metadata for the source component and the destinationcomponent, the time stamp for the new network connection or the changein the existing network connection, and the time of the changesassociated with the arrangement of the source component or thedestination component.
 12. The system of claim 8, wherein the system isfurther configured to identify a subset of components of the componentsof the application that are not involved in the new network connectionor the change in the existing network connection based on the comparisonof at least the network address of the source component and the networkaddress of the destination component to the network address associatedwith each of the components of the application, wherein the networkpolicy for the source component or the destination component isgenerated using at least the metadata for the source component and thedestination component and the subset of components of the components ofthe application that are not involved in the new network connection orthe change in the existing network connection.
 13. The system of claim8, wherein the network policy comprises information indicating that thenetwork policy is applicable to a defined version of the sourcecomponent or the destination component.
 14. The system of claim 8,wherein the system is further configured to deploy the deploymentpackage to a computing node in a computing environment of the system.15. A non-transitory computer-readable medium having program code thatis stored thereon, the program code executable by one or more processingdevices for performing operations comprising: monitoring network trafficflow originating from network interfaces corresponding to containersthat execute components of an application; detecting a new networkconnection or a change in an existing network connection within thenetwork traffic based on the monitoring of the network traffic flow; inresponse to detecting the new network connection or the change in theexisting network connection, recording details of the new networkconnection or the change in the existing network connection, wherein thedetails include a network address of a source component and a networkaddress of a destination component for the new network connection or thechange in the existing network connection; obtaining informationconcerning the components of the application, wherein the informationincludes the network address and metadata associated with each of thecomponents of the application; identifying metadata for the sourcecomponent and the destination component based on a comparison of atleast the network address of the source component and the networkaddress of the destination component to the network address associatedwith each of the components of the application; generating a networkpolicy for the source component or the destination component using atleast the metadata for the source component and the destinationcomponent, wherein the network policy comprises informationrepresentative of the new network connection or the change in theexisting network connection; and integrating the network policy for thesource component or the destination component into a deployment packagefor the application.
 16. The non-transitory computer-readable medium ofclaim 15, wherein the details further include a time stamp for the newnetwork connection or the change in the existing network connection. 17.The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 16, wherein theinformation further includes any changes to arrangement of thecomponents and time of the changes, and the metadata comprises labelsassociated with each of the components of the application.
 18. Thenon-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 17, wherein the networkpolicy for the source component or the destination component isgenerated using at least the metadata for the source component and thedestination component, the time stamp for the new network connection orthe change in the existing network connection, and the time of thechanges associated with the arrangement of the source component or thedestination component.
 19. The non-transitory computer-readable mediumof claim 15, wherein the operations further comprise identifying asubset of components of the components of the application that are notinvolved in the new network connection or the change in the existingnetwork connection based on the comparison of at least the networkaddress of the source component and the network address of thedestination component to the network address associated with each of thecomponents of the application, wherein the network policy for the sourcecomponent or the destination component is generated using at least themetadata for the source component and the destination component and thesubset of components of the components of the application that are notinvolved in the new network connection or the change in the existingnetwork connection.
 20. The non-transitory computer-readable medium ofclaim 15, wherein the network policy comprises information indicatingthat the network policy is applicable to a defined version of the sourcecomponent or the destination component.